


Whumptober 2020: Stoki

by MostFacinorous



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:00:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 31
Words: 41,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26762467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MostFacinorous/pseuds/MostFacinorous
Summary: With the intent to update every day of October, this is Whumptober 2020: The Stoki edition.Each chapter will be a short little tidbit that builds on those before it to create a full story by end of month.(I do admittedly have a bad habit of turning these into something closer to angstober, instead.)Starts out without a relationship, but knowing me, it'll head that way.
Relationships: Loki & Steve Rogers, Loki/Steve Rogers
Comments: 43
Kudos: 58





	1. Let's Hang Out Sometime

Loki wished he could say he was new to this, or at least less than used to it, but in honesty there were few people who knew him that wouldn’t tie him up, given the opportunity, within moments of his appearance. 

Case in point, his current captor, The Captain. He’d been waiting when he returned from a dinner out, casually leaning back on his couch and sipping on some of his alcohol, and before he’d even finished his drink he’d been knocked out, and had awakened trussed up like a boar for roasting. 

Well, perhaps that was dramatic. His hands were bound, and he’d certainly had worse. Also notably, interestingly, the captain was still alone, and not surrounded by his team.

“You do realize I’m only letting you do this for your own comfort.” He commented, adjusting his wrists obligingly while the Captain checked over the shackles he’d been put in while he was out. 

At least he got a point for decency, checking Loki’s fingers to be certain his circulation wasn’t threatened. But he lost that point for the way he snorted in response to Loki’s attempt at making polite conversation.

“Is that a hobby of yours? You seem to let us lock you up fairly frequently.” 

Loki had the good grace to flush, if only slightly. 

“Yes, well, you seem to be more open to listening when I’m restrained. It isn’t my fault I have to compensate for your paranoia.” He ignored the stiffness in his neck; he was seated on a much harder chair than he had been before he’d been so rudely deprived of his libation, and his head had been allowed to loll on his neck while he was restrained. Rude.

“Hm.” Rogers said, circling back around and stepping back, the better to survey him from his standing position.   
“Seems to me it’s entirely your fault we have to be on guard around you. History shows you mostly try to screw us over when we hear you out.” 

Loki had to concede that he had a point, though he did  _ not  _ have to do so out loud, and so did not. 

“It is precisely that history which I have come to discuss with you. I am afraid that our history-- not just yours and mine, but all of this timeline’s-- is under threat. And I cannot handle it on my own.”

Rogers blinked.   
“I’m not sure if I believe you, but either way-- that’s a lot more humility than I would think you were capable of.”

He crossed his arms and Loki could feel himself being watched for any sign of ire or struggle. So he relaxed into his bindings instead. 

“Please, Captain. I was a Prince and a younger brother. Both roles demand humility, and a willingness to show it.” Loki shrugged, contriving to look unbothered. 

“So what’s this threat, then, that you can’t handle it with all your magic, but you think I-- or we, the Avengers too, I assume-- can help?” 

“Well,” Loki paused for added drama, “I wasn’t certain if you’d want to involve your friends. You see-- the threat is your Bucky. And the stone that has come into his possession. It is a source of great power, and his handlers have lost sight of him. It seems to me that he of all people has plenty of reason to wish to rewrite history. Whether you will allow him to or not, though… that’s what I am interested in finding out.” 

Rogers sat down, hard, stumbling back the few feet it took to land on the couch. 

“Bucky’s run off with a magic stone to fix the past?” He repeated, obviously stricken. 

Loki nodded. 

“Not that I can blame him, but anything he changes will have drastic repercussions on our present, up to and including unraveling it entirely. And I think you know as well as I that he isn’t in the best of mind states. Who knows whether or not it is his own agenda he is working toward.” 

Rogers was silent for a long moment, gaze locked on his shoes. 

“Thank you. For coming to me with this.” He finally said, and his voice was a croak that spoke of threatening tears. 

“Oh, please. It’s hardly a favor. You want the soldier. I want the stone. Can we help one another, or no?” Loki spoke it as the challenge it was. 

Rogers looked up at long last, and though his eyes looked red, his face was determined. 

“You’re going to help me find him.” He answered. 

Loki stood, and turned his back toward Rogers, wiggling his fingers in anticipation of having his freedom restored. “Then let’s make haste. Once you take these off, I can--”

“Oh no, you’re going just like that. I can throw you further than I can trust you, even on the best of days.” 

Loki spun to face him, dismayed. 

“You would have me lead you to your friend, the assassin, unable to defend myself?” 

Rogers smirked.

“Ought to at least slow you down when you decide to double cross me, don’t you think?” 

Loki was suddenly not entirely pleased any more about the situation he’d put himself in.


	2. In the Hands of the Enemy

With Loki’s hands restrained, it took surprisingly little time to fall into Hydra’s clutches. Or perhaps it was unsurprising. The Captain was predictably and reliably single minded, where his friend the Soldier was concerned.

There had been a trap, because of course there had-- Hydra had to know that the Captain would go in search of his erstwhile friend, and so they’d planted some of their more powerful operatives on Barnes’ still-warm trail, and only had to wait for Rogers and Loki to blunder into them, too distracted by their petty bickering to see that they’d been surrounded until it was much too late. 

“I expected you to double cross me at some point, but I didn’t think you’d be working with  _ them _ .” The Captain did not attempt to hide his disgust, though the collar that linked to his wrists behind his back clearly made it hard for him to speak. 

“Please.” Loki sneered. “If I were working with them, they would have freed me by now.” 

They’d both been loaded into the back of a transport vehicle, and Loki knew he wasn’t the only one taking notice of how Rogers was eyeing every bit of weaponry on each of the men around them. Loki huffed out an annoyed sigh.

“Also: I doubt anyone has ever accused you of being subtle, but your obvious attention to our guards is putting them on edge. Relax and let us see what they have to say, before you make them so jumpy we end up shot before we even arrive where we’re going.” 

The Captain shot him a glare that would have gone through him, were it weaponizable. 

“That’s enough out of both of you. We’ll be there shortly. In the meantime, keep your gobs shut.” The one with the crackling electrical gauntlets snapped at them, and Loki flashed him a nearly appreciative look, and illusorily wiped his mouth clean off his face. 

The Captain, thank goodness, apparently took this for the comfort it was meant to be; Loki still had access to his seidhr. That, or he was quietly planning to murder Loki. At any rate he maintained his silence-- no doubt pouting at having been told of his transparency, but Loki would take it. He could do with a few less glares in his direction-- but he could also do with being uncuffed, and neither of those things seemed likely at present. 

It was not a long drive, as promised, and all things considered their treatment was passing polite-- they emerged into whatever base Hydra was using now without any more bruises than they’d incurred in the initial scuffle before they had been subdued. 

Again, Loki was grateful, and again he got the feeling that the Captain lacked the sense to share his gratitude. 

No matter; they’d made it this far. This, then, was the part where they would learn what their captors had in mind for them.

“Rumlow.” Rogers growled menacingly, upon being presented before the apparent leader of this outfit. Again, no surprise that at least one of them knew the man in charge. 

“Rogers. How nice to see you-- keeping fit, I see. Chasing the soldier will do that to a guy.” 

The man turned his much scarred face to Loki, and gave him an unmistakable once over. 

“Unless you’re moving up in the world? Caught yourself a magical prince, I see. And those aren’t  _ our _ cuffs. Kinky. Good for you.” 

Rogers made another animalistic noise and lunged at the man, hands still bound, and head, apparently, still empty. 

“I imagine you’ve some sort of proposal for us?” Loki asked, raising his voice pointedly over the sound of Rogers being struck by their guards’ electrical prods. 

“Oh good, there’s one smart person on your team. Yeah, I have a proposal. I’m sure you know about the time stone. You get it for us, I’ll give you the soldier and his code book.”

Rumlow looked back to Rogers, apparently used to him being in charge. Rogers was panting, regaining his breath and footing after the electrical discharges had forced him to his knees.

“And what’s in it for me?” Loki asked, narrowing his eyes. 

Rumlow looked between them, and Loki wondered what he thought he saw-- they were not close, and there was no way Loki would go on this sort of wild goose chase for the Captain’s benefit alone. 

“I take it you made the same offer to him, then?” Rumlow asked, jerking his head towards Rogers. 

“It’s a deal.” The Captain interrupted. “I’ll get you the stone, you leave Bucky and I alone. Deal.”    
Loki couldn’t help but notice the desperation in his voice. 

“No offense, Stevie, but if it was something you could do on your own, we would already have managed.”

“I’m after the stone myself, yes. And I can’t imagine a single reason why I would want you to have access to it, let alone why I might give it to you.” 

Rumlow grinned.

“I hafta admit-- I was kinda hoping you’d say something like that.”


	3. My Way or the Highway

All of the politeness they’d enjoyed up until then disappeared the moment their audience with Rumlow ended. 

He and Rogers were both electrocuted by the men with stun batons, and it went on for longer than strictly necessary, even for Loki’s tolerance. By the time the buzzing stopped, Rogers had a bloody nose, and Loki felt like he was a moment away from vomiting. 

From there, they were seized by their elbows and dragged to their feet, then through the halls of this converted warehouse, and thrown down a short flight of stairs into a windowless concrete room. 

Once the door had shut behind them with a final sounding metallic clang, and the silence had lasted for a few seconds, Rogers groaned. 

“Loki?” He asked, voice hoarse and rough-- and little wonder. He hadn’t screamed, but the noises that had been ripped from his throat had been guttural and angry. 

“I’m here,” He answered, aware he sounded no better. 

He struggled to his knees and summoned a weak little light, sending it up into the air to force back the darkness. 

Rogers was still bleeding, though it looked less serious now. No doubt his quick healing was seeing to it, given it was a fairly minor inconvenience, all things considered.    
  


“So.” He said quietly. “That went… poorly.”

“You should have just agreed, and double crossed them later.” The Captain sounded bitter, and Loki laughed. 

“If I were to do that, you would be all the more convinced that I meant to do the same to you the moment it became more convenient. Please, Captain. I am many things, but an oath breaker is not among them.” 

Rogers stared at him, and Loki could not tell if he was considering or merely concussed. After a time, the silence grew louder, becoming intentional, stretching taut, before finally breaking. 

“You’re right.” Rogers said at length. “I was thinking about it-- you’ve lied, but never about something you said you’d do-- or wouldn’t.”

Loki huffed a bit.   
“You needn’t tell me that; I take special care not to. So, where does that leave us?” 

“Locked up together in a Hydra base?” Rogers cracked wise, and in the wan light, Loki saw his smile. “Can you use your magic to get free?” 

“I can.”    
Loki spoke quietly, unsure if their captors were listening.    
“I am unsure the best moment to reveal that little tidbit. I cannot walk through walls, and as such, we do need to be concerned about being overwhelmed.”

Rogers nodded, struggling to find a comfortable way of resting, with his neck bound to his wrists with chains. 

Taking some pity, Loki broke the chains and gave Rogers a bit more mobility. 

“I can break yours as well-- when the moment is right.”    
He kept his voice low, soothing, and found himself hoping Rogers was not afraid of him-- a wholly unwelcome and nonsensical thought. What did it matter if he were? It wouldn’t change what Loki had to do. 

Rogers stretched and rolled his head.    
“Thanks.”    
  
He didn’t sound especially afraid. 

And yet, when the door opened, and Rumlow descended bearing a gun nearly as large as he was, Rogers did an honors worthy impression of looking it. 

“So,” Rumlow said. “We’ve been talking, and I had a thought-- how many super powered freaks does it take to bring back a rock?” 

He leveled the gun at Rogers’ head. 

“Seems to me it doesn’t really matter if the Soldier makes it out alive or not. Once we have the stone, we could go pluck him out of the past before he even remembers your name.”

“You’ve yet to answer what’s in it for me.” Loki reminded him, tone icy to hide the discomfort he felt, watching the Captain looking down that barrel. 

“You go do this, and I won’t kill the Captain here. Which is good for you, because then the Avengers don’t leap to the conclusion that you did it.” 

“I think,” Loki said slowly, “That now might be a good time to tell you something about me.” 

He glanced in Rogers’ direction and managed to meet his eye.

“Oh? What’s that?” Rumlow asked, barely humoring him. 

Loki let both his and Steve’s shackles fall with a quick flash of green light.

“I don’t do well with ultimatums.” Loki answered, striking the gun so that it aimed upwards, just as Rumlow pulled the trigger. 

It was not, as it turned out, anything like any of the guns Loki had ever encountered before. 

He was aware of a searing pain in his hand and a lurching beneath his feet. He heard Rogers call his name, and saw Rumlow hit the ground.

“Ah.” Loki said. “Not good.”


	4. Running Out of Time

It was dark and the air was thick with dust and smoke, probably asbestos… but that was a worry for later, if they made it to see later. 

Steve was doing his best to crawl towards where he’d last seen Loki. Rumlow’s weapon had gone off and the whole building had gone with it. 

He’d found Rumlow’s boots a ways back, his legs protruding from under a sizeable chunk of debris that he didn’t think the guy would be recovering from, and he’d bit down both the bile and the satisfaction he felt, turning to more important matters. 

Like the faint groaning he could hear nearby. 

“Loki?” He called, trying to be loud enough to be heard but not loud enough to spook him, if he was in bad shape. 

Another groan, and he turned towards it, accidentally smashing himself into yet more debris. 

“Here, Rogers.” Loki said, immediately before devolving into a coughing fit. Steve couldn’t blame him. 

It kind of smelled like there might be a fire somewhere above them, which, if that were the case, lowered the chances of their survival in a quick mental calculation that hadn’t even started out particularly optimistic. 

He heard the sound of hard material shifting and grinding against itself, and felt as the whole mass above their heads shuddered.

“Don’t.” He said sharply. “Hold still, I’m coming.” 

A green light flickered to life as he came around another mound of fallen building, and there was Loki, looking even paler than usual, though the light probably wasn’t helping matters. 

And the chunk of concrete settled on his legs definitely wasn’t doing him any favors either. 

“I seem to be stuck.” He remarked drily, and Steve scoffed. 

“Let me see what I can do.” 

Gingerly, he made his way right up to the piece that was pinning Loki down, and worked his fingers underneath. He began lifting it, just slightly, but Loki whimpered and the ceiling-- or whatever part of the building was above them-- threatened to come down again. 

Carefully, Steve worked it back to where it had been. 

“I don’t think it’s any use.” Loki told him, a forced sort of cheerfulness in his voice. “You may as well try and find a way out. I’m going to be useless to you, even if it doesn’t all come tumbling down on us. It feels… distinctly shattered, under there.” 

His voice took on a ragged edge as he shifted himself, and Steve winced sympathetically. He could only imagine the kind of pain the guy must be in. He wore it well, though. 

“You’ve got healing, though, right? Some kind of magic that will pull you through. You must, to have survived the Hulk.” 

Loki pursed his lips, then nodded. 

“But I have to be alive to use it, and I don’t see any way that you can get me out from under this without us both dying. So. Better that you get out. You can at least tell Thor where to find my body, later.” 

Loki glanced away, and Steve felt his stomach lurch. 

“No, that’s not going to happen. But I’ll tell you what is: I’m going to stand up as much as I can, and push up on the roof with my shoulders. Once the weight of it is off the bit that’s on your legs, we’ll push it off of you. And then…”

“And then you will be trapped holding up a roof while I can’t do anything but crawl in agony, and potentially black out from pain, being of absolutely no use and forcing you to maintain your position or crush us both. Is that your plan?”

Loki was sharp now, the pain coming through in his voice, and Steve wished he knew a better option. 

“Let me see if I can find anything that will help take the load.” 

Loki laughed. 

“Rogers, if the ceiling doesn’t fall, if we do not burn to death, then the air will not last long. I will ask you once more- find your own way out. We’re running out of time, and there is no reason we both must die here.” 

Steve was about to say more-- he opened his mouth to offer some retort, when he felt a sort of tugging sensation… and the debris around them began to rise, floating-- no, unfailing-- as it returned to the shape it had been. He saw Loki lurch back to his feet like a marionette jerked back to attention, and saw as Rumlow was uncrushed, stood, regained his grip on the gun, and swung it down from the ceiling and back into Loki’s hands. 

The only difference was, this time it pointed at nothing, because through all of this reversal, Steve hadn’t moved. 

He jerked his head around, and then he saw him-- Bucky, standing just inside the newly restored door of the room they’d been in when it all had gone to shit. 

“Hey Steve,” he said, all casual as if he did this sort of thing a lot. 

Maybe he did-- who knew-- he had the time stone, after all. Maybe for years, in his lifetime. 

“Buck, am I glad to see you,” Steve started, but Bucky shook his head. 

“Come on. Now’s not the time. We only have seconds to get out of here, so let’s make tracks.” 

Steve frowned, and looked back at Loki, who was frozen with a look of determination on his face. 

He was standing where he was, about to suffer, because he’d stepped in to save Steve from Rumlow. 

“Steve…” Bucky warned.

Bad guy or not, he had made the choice to put himself between them. And he had started out on this trip as Steve’s prisoner. He couldn’t just leave him to die here.

“Loki--” Steve began, and Bucky huffed. 

“Too late,” He said, and the world around them swung back into motion.


	5. Where Do You Think You're Going?

“Wha--” Loki found Rumlow suddenly swinging away-- an unexpected move. He glanced back towards Rogers, only to find that he was no longer there. And then he saw him, standing near the Soldier. 

Ah. 

Damn. 

“Nice of you to join us.” Rumlow was saying, aiming the gun at Rogers’s friend. 

“Loki,” Rogers said, taking a step forward. “It’s not a bullets gun, it’s a make the building collapse one. Come on--” He took hold of his hand, just as the gun went off. 

Dizzyingly fast, the soldier was at Rogers’s side, grasping his shoulder, and the world was moving in reverse. The charge went back into the gun, Rumlow turned and got back into the position he’d been in-- only this time without either Loki or the Captain in place to threaten. 

The soldier let go and his metal hand relaxed a bit, showing a faint glow from within. Of course, the stone. What else could do this? 

“Can we go, this time?” The soldier demanded, and Loki found himself being yanked along behind Rogers as they ran out the door. It was only a moment later, perhaps two, before he heard Rumlow yelling behind them, and an alarm went off. 

The building was suddenly swarming with people looking for the emergency. All of them armed. Many of them between the three of them and escape. 

“Careful with that!” Loki snapped, seeing the Soldier beginning to activate the stone again. Instead, Loki raised a shield and flung it before them. “Go!”

He began running towards it, and did not wait to see if the other two followed. They would if they knew what was best for them.

The shield pushed the Hydra soldiers out of the way, and Loki, as the force behind the shield, put his hands out and broke off bits, keeping them down. By then, the Captain and the Soldier had caught up. 

“Through, out the door. I’ll seal it behind us. Buy us some time.” 

He saw them exchange a look, then take him at his word before they ran past. 

Breathing a sigh of relief, Loki began to turn. 

“And where do you think you’re going?” He heard, and then he felt an agonizing streak of pain in his back. 

Rumlow, it seemed, had also caught up to them. 

“You think you can stop  _ me _ ?” Loki asked, incredulous, as he shot a wave of seidhr through whatever was jammed into his back and up Rumlow’s arm. He willed it hot, then cold, and turned to watch as the ice literally froze in Rumlow’s veins. 

“Find someone else to do your dirty work.” He growled. “Or better- drop this and do not cross me again.” 

Finally, with the last of his strength, though he hoped that much was not obvious, he pressed the shield along every surface inside of the building, binding each person to the surface nearest them. 

It wouldn’t last for long, minutes at most, but those minutes were precious. 

He flung the doors open and walked outside into the bright sunlight, not surprised to find that the Captain and Soldier were nowhere in sight. 

“Right.” He muttered, and fell to his knees. 

He needed to get clear before Hydra came after him, before they found him weak, vulnerable-- 

His eyes slid shut and he was distantly aware of his face meeting the ground.


	6. Please

“Shit, Loki!” 

Steve had been waiting on one side of the door, Bucky on the opposite side, ready to take down anyone who tried to follow Loki out. 

Instead, they’d watched as Loki made it outside, looked around for half a second, and then collapsed, the knife in his back sticking straight up like a bad prop in a kids’ play. 

Only, the blood spreading out from it was very real. 

“This fuckin’ guy can’t go five minutes without almost dying.” Bucky cracked, and Steve shot him a look. 

“Yeah, but both times, it was tryin’ to save my skin. Can you help me get him somewhere?” He asked, already gathering Loki up. The guy was heavier than he looked. Dense, like he was made of something other than flesh and blood. 

Bucky, on the other hand, was looking back inside, and let out a low whistle. 

“Glad he’s on our side.” He muttered, then shook his head. “I have a car hidden in the trees, let’s get him there. Leave the knife til we can get him to some first aid, unless you want him bleeding out.”

“Not so sure about our side. Not really sure why he’s trying so hard to help. I just know he’s after that stone of yours. Good to see you though. Good to see you… more you.” 

Steve was partially grunting as they walked, burdened as he was by the weight of this-- whatever he was. Alien god or whatever.

“So about that…” Bucky started, but Loki came to with a pained wheeze, thrashing in Steve’s arms so that he went tumbling out of them.

He caught himself, mostly, and ended up kneeling and panting, wild eyed and clearly in pain. 

“Hey, Loki, you’re good, it’s just us. We have to get you out of here before Hydra gets loose from whatever you did back there.”

Loki tried to stand, then seemed to realize the knife was still in his back. He reached one hand over his shoulder and the other back behind his back, trying to get a grip on it. 

“I-- can’t--” He snarled, then looked up and directly into Steve’s face. “Take it out. Please.”

“If we take it out now, you might bleed out before we can get you to someone who can help. C’mon, we’re not that far from the car now. Let me help you-- we’ll get you somewhere safe.” 

Loki stared up at him, face darkening but clearly not really comprehending. 

“Rogers, take this knife from my back or I swear to you--” 

Bucky stepped around behind him and yanked it out in one fluid motion, chucking the knife away into the underbrush. 

Loki collapsed again, and this time Bucky scooped him up while Steve stared, open mouthed. 

“We’re wasting time.” Bucky snarled, and Steve could only chase him the rest of the way to the car. 

Once there, they put Loki in the back and Steve crowded in beside him, bundling up what was left of his cape to use as a temporary bandage while he put pressure on the wound. 

“Sure hope that didn’t hit anything important.” Bucky remarked calmly as he put the car in gear. “Guess we’ll find out soon.” 


	7. I've Got You

Loki came to again, vaguely aware that he was moving due to the passing of lights overhead. The rapid flickering as it dimmed then brightened again was perhaps what pulled him back to consciousness. He doubted it was the gentle sway of the cart he’d been strapped to. 

“Loki?” He turned his eyes toward the voice, and saw the Captain’s concerned face, upside down above him. 

“You’re in a SHIELD hospital. You got hurt getting us out of Hydra’s base. We’re on our way to see a doctor now.” 

Loki shook his head. 

“I can do this.” He croaked, his voice rough and his throat incredibly dry. Just moving his head had made him dizzy, but there was little enough time to focus on that, when he was being moved through a twin set of doors and into a room that was evenly bright-- though he could not be grateful for that. 

He snapped his eyes shut with a wince. 

“Loki, the doctors are just going to make sure nothing vital was damaged when the knife went in or came out, okay? I’m right here.” 

Loki snapped his eyes open. 

“I don’t trust them. Why should I trust you?” He felt like he was floating, barely alert enough for this nonsense. But he was lucid enough to register the hurt on the Captain’s face. 

“Because you got hurt saving me. Let me help, now. Let me return the favor. Trust me.” He spoke lowly, earnestly, and it was almost drowned out in the flurry of activity and voices around them. 

“Excuse me, Captain, but we’re doing to need to put him under now,” a new voice said, and Loki felt hands closing around his arms and legs as a mask descended into view. 

“Hey, Loki, I’m right here. It’s okay. I’ve got you.” Rogers was insisting. Loki felt another sharp spike going through him, though this one was of fear. Humans… what did they know of… of…

Whatever was in the air went to work fast. The last thing he saw was Rogers’s face, still upside down, looking concerned for his enemy. Like some kind of idiot.

\---

When Loki woke again, he was somewhere new, someplace he’d never been. He was comfortable enough, he supposed, taking stock of himself. 

His back was stiff, in a way he didn’t really expect, but that seemed less pressing than the fact that he was bound to the bed again. 

It was the work of half a moment to set himself free of that, but when he moved his arm, he found tubes feeding into his skin, things taped to his hand and squeezing on his fingertip.

He licked his lips, unsure what any of this was. 

“You’re awake!” He heard, and turned to see Rogers coming through the door, the Soldier obediently in tow but clearly not pleased about any of this. 

“You mean your doctors didn’t kill me when they had the chance?” He asked drily. 

“Why would they? I brought you here for help, not--” Rogers looked upset again, and this time Loki only felt smug about it. 

“Leave it, Stevie, he’s being an ass. Look, you’re awake now-- congrats on not dying. Why did you warn me to be careful with the stone? What do you know about it?” 

The Soldier pulled up a chair and sat in it, getting himself closer to Loki’s eye level and all but ignoring the captain in favor of staring unblinkingly while he waited for answers. 

“The stone…” Loki licked his lips, wishing for water and unwilling to ask. “You still have it, then? Hydra didn’t--” 

“I’ve got it.” The soldier was curt. 

“You should not use it in rapid succession. Even twice within an hour is too much. You create tears, rend the fabric of time. It is impossible to say what can happen if you are careless.” 

“You used it twice in just a couple of minutes to get us out of there.” Rogers pointed out, speaking only to the Soldier. 

Loki’s brows rose. 

“I was only aware of the once.” He said slowly, trying to puzzle through the rules of how this brand of magic worked.

“Anyone I’m not touching gets turned back. Or, I guess, two degrees of contact works, too. I used it once I got to the location-- turned time back forward to after you’d arrived. I was a few hours early.” He shrugged almost apologetically, and Rogers blinked. 

“So you jumped forward and allowed your friend to be beaten, then burst in to save us like some kind of hero?” Loki could scarcely believe the stupidity, or the audacity in his failure to look truly sorry. 

“I’m doing my best here, okay?” The Soldier demanded, then settled back, slumping into his chair. “So yeah, that was first, then you guys had the whole building collapsed on top of you--”

“What?” Loki asked, before remembering Rogers disappearing from in front of Rumlow’s gun, and his words about their needing to get out of there. 

“Rumlow fired off his weapon,” the Captain said softly, watching Loki’s face entirely too closely for his comfort, as if looking for signs of fear or trauma. 

“Yes I’d worked that out, thanks.” Loki responded. He refused to ask what had happened to him in that timeline, that had Rogers treating him so gently.

“And then there was the time I turned it back and you came with me and we ran. That was it, though.” 

“Thrice, then… and still you let me be stabbed and bleed out.” He raised his brow, and the soldier shrugged. 

“Priorities.” He said simply, popping his plosive with such indolence, Loki would have smacked him if he didn’t worry for his own present fragility. 

He glared at the soldier just the same. 

“So now what? I imagine you aren’t interested in my attempting to coax you to hand the stone over to me.” And he knew Rogers would hardly allow him to take it from the Soldier by force. Besides, even had he not nearly perished recently, he doubted he could handle the both of them teamed up against him. 

“We’ll see. I have some stuff I want to undo, first. Things I need to make right. I haven’t figured out how to jump around more than a couple of hours, though. Steve says you can help me understand this thing.” 

Loki found himself looking to the Captain. 

“It seems to me we can make a deal-- the knowledge we need to do what Bucky needs to do, and once that’s done…” He trailed off, obviously hesitant to offer what wasn’t his, and what neither of them were certain they should trust Loki with. 

Loki looked back to the soldier. 

“Going back too far will not only tear the world as we know it apart, it may destroy you. You’re only mortal, after all… and if you change what’s made you as you are now, if you don’t do it with surgeons’ precision, the current you will cease to exist, and so be unable to go back to create the new version of yourself, and the entire thing will unravel.”

Rogers’ eyes went wide and round, but the soldier’s narrowed to thin slits. 

“Are you saying you won’t teach me?” 

“I will not teach you.” Loki confirmed. 

He knew that wasn’t what the Soldier wanted to hear, and still he flinched when the man slammed his way to his feet and stormed out. 

Rogers did not stay to comment, only casting one reproachful look back over his shoulder. 

And then Loki was alone.


	8. Where Did Everybody Go?

It was bad enough that he was weak, injured and alone on Midgard. It was worse knowing that none knew he was here, that The Soldier could be doing untold damage to the timeline-- to  _ every _ timeline-- and there was nothing he could do about it. 

The very worst part, however, was that he should be well by now. Strong enough, at least, to leave this place. 

He had not seen anyone since the Captain and his friend had left. He could only assume the fluids he was being given kept his hunger away and kept him hydrated. There was a small water closet for his needs, and none had come in to resecure him to his bed-- but the door would not open and there was no window.

And something was keeping him weak. 

They had found some chemical to put into him that would dampen his power and keep him from healing as he ought. 

There were, he discovered, stitches in his back. And they itched terribly. They ought to have been rejected, pushed out of his skin by his healing by the morning after they’d been applied, at the latest, and yet here he was, near as he could tell, days later-- with little to no progress to his name. 

Only white walls and empty room, and nothing to entertain himself with. Not that he had much time for that-- they also seemed eager to send him repeatedly to sleep. 

He’d woken once to find blood on the sheet beneath his arm, and he realized they must be taking that from him while he was unconscious, though to what end, he couldn’t guess. 

Humans, and the things they could make, had been underestimated for too long. And Loki had little enough concept of Asgardian medicine, let alone Midgard’s abilities. But they had done something-- were actively doing something-- and he could scarcely keep his eyes open for long enough to learn about his surroundings, let alone do anything about them. 

He had no allies, and none knew he was here, save those who had put him in this position. 

He supposed he oughtn’t be surprised. The Captain no doubt thought it was for the best. 

He was only protecting himself, his friends… his world. He had, after all, pointed out that Loki was the one who had earned his reputation for evil. 

He wished sleep meant he wouldn’t feel the cool flush of betrayal, or the waves of alternating misery and depression, neither better than the other despite the numbing and thawing of his emotions that set them apart. 

He had no real idea how long it was before the captain returned, and he was only able to wake himself part way when he did. 

He knew it was important-- could hear the yelling. He caught a glimpse of some doctor’s long white jacket, though he kept having to fight to reopen his eyes. They were so heavy. All of him was. 

He opened them again at a persistent voice, close to him, and found himself face to face with the Captain. 

“Loki.” He was saying, again and again. 

Loki grumbled. 

“Hey, there you are. It’s gonna be okay now-- I’m sorry, this wasn’t supposed to--” Loki felt his head lolling away, as much of a resistance to the captain’s words as he could manage. 

“You did this.” He said, and though the words were sluggish, he knew the Captain had heard him, because he stopped speaking. 

He felt himself being lifted, and what small part of him was capable of feeling was afraid-- what came next, what more permanent answer did they have to the problem of Loki? 

He supposed it hardly mattered. There wasn’t much he could do about it, at any rate. And no one else was going to help him, either.


	9. For the Greater Good

They never made it out of the SHIELD hospital. Or-- it was supposed to be SHIELD.

It seemed their efforts at weeding out the Hydra operatives at SHIELD hadn’t been particularly effective. Which, of course, explained a little of why Steve had come back to find Loki in the state he’d been in. 

He and Bucky had agreed that paying a visit to the only other person they knew who’d had a time stone was in order-- and it was incredibly unclear as to whether or not they were the same time stone. Theoretically it was possible. Though Bucky’s didn’t have a fancy setting like Strange’s did. 

Their visit had ended up taking five days. First because Strange made it hard to get to him, and then because he was a pain in the ass to deal with once they had. Ultimately, he knew a little more than Loki, but his approach wasn’t really something Bucky or Steve could do. 

And so here they were, days later, none the wiser, and Loki-- who had been the most helpful so far, to the point of getting hurt for Steve’s sake, had spent all that time being… what? Drugged? Tested on? 

Everytime Steve thought about it, he felt sick to his stomach.

Though, that might also have been the after effects of taking at least four tasers to the stomach and a few kicks, once he’d dropped Loki. At least Bucky had stayed back at the hotel today-- he hoped no one had gone after him, with Steve gone.

Now he was being made to watch as they put Loki in some sort of chair-- one that looked upsettingly similar to the one they’d used on Bucky in the videos he’d seen. 

“Why?” He asked. “What are you even hoping to achieve? He’s so out of it already…”

“You’re familiar with the Winter Soldier program, the one that made your friend into the asset he is today. Or was, before you broke him.” 

Steve didn’t know the person who was talking, but he didn’t have to know their name to know that when and if he got free of these magnetic shackles, theirs was the first ass he was going to kick. 

“What about it? Loki’s not even human, you think any of this will work on him?” 

The man scoffed. 

“We’ve had plenty of time since you abandoned him here to take samples and prepare a special drug, just for him. He isn’t a human, no, but he’s got plenty of things in common with us. Starting with his weakness to narcotics. He just doesn’t seem to find them as fun as the rest of us do.” 

Steve snarled at that and tried again to pull his arms free, throwing his body weight behind it, but all that seemed to do was dig the cuffs into his wrists. 

“Don’t do this.” He said, words coming out before he even fully thought about it. “You know the Winter Soldier serum was made trying to emulate mine. Well, I’m here now.” It was another betrayal-- he’d just found out that he’d left Loki to these peoples’ care, and now he was offering to betray Erskine, his work, his memory… 

“Oh, make no mistake, Captain. I intend to make full use of you. But in the meantime, I thought it might be fun to see whether electricity affects the mind of an alien in the same way it does a human. Imagine how much easier our work will be with Loki on our side, to speed things along.”

Steve twisted his wrists again, horrified at even the prospect. Behind the man, he saw Loki’s eyes opening, saw his face crease with concern while he tried to make sense of his surroundings. 

Steve saw his opening, and took it. He just needed Loki to do his trick with the restraints like he’d done with Rumlow, and they could get out of here.

“You think electricity’s going to do anything to him? His brother controls lightning. I’ve seen it-- all you’re going to do is make him angry.” He looked upwards at his cuffs. 

Loki blinked slowly, then his eyes slid upwards as well. He frowned, looking like he was concentrating, but nothing happened. 

With a sinking feeling, Steve wondered if Hydra had found a way to carve Loki’s magic out of him while he slept. 

“Well, we shall see. If he does get angry, we can send him back for another nap while we make adjustments. Or just fry his brain completely. It would be for the best, wouldn’t you agree? The world would be a safer place without Loki in it.” 

Steve saw Loki’s eyes slide closed, and a single tear slip through his lashes to run down his cheek. 

He wasn’t sure why, but somehow that was the worst part of this. Maybe because it seemed wrong; Loki shouldn’t be so weak. And in Loki’s own words, this was his fault. 

He strained, almost certain he felt something in his shoulder tearing, but it did made no difference. The magnetic cuffs hummed and resisted any amount of force he threw at them.

The doctor tutted and stepped over to the door and out into the hall, speaking to someone-- no doubt requesting something to put Steve into a stupor similar to the one they had Loki in.

“Loki, you’ve gotta do something. I know you can-- there’s got to be something. Whatever you have to do, you have to get out of here. Find Bucky and run!” 

Steve spoke fast, urgently.

Loki’s eyes opened, and he saw them hardening-- and he felt his stomach sinking. 

Loki hated him now, and with good reason. Why should he listen to him? 

And so, when a tiny spark of green light came, Steve bit his lip, bracing for pain. There was another, and then-- a flash, bright as noon, and… Loki was gone.

Steve sagged in his shackles, relieved against all sensibility. 

At least now it was only him.


	10. They Look So Pretty When They Bleed

Loki let the glamour fade, let himself be seen again, as soon as he deemed it safe. He’d walked, ghost-like, straight out of the hospital and down the first road he came to, dazed and woozy and only certain of one thing-- he needed to find the Soldier. He would know what to do, how to rescue the Captain. 

Even the thought of finding him seemed an insurmountable challenge at present. 

Loki’s legs were weak, and he sat down, hard, on the side of the road. He lifted heavy hands to cradle his head, and sat there for who knew how long, breathing and fighting for control of his own mind and body. 

The Captain was in danger-- he knew that. He knew, too, that it served him right. He’d told the man he didn’t trust the doctors, and if he hadn’t left Loki with them in the first place, he wouldn’t be in the situation he was in now. 

But… Loki wanted to help him. 

The drugs were a convenient excuse for his inability to examine his own motives, though in truth he would be wary of looking too closely at them even at his most sober. Perhaps especially then. 

He could claim it was to curry favor with the Soldier, later. No doubt it would be effective. 

He just had to find him, first. 

\---

The drugs weren’t working; his body was burning them off as fast as they could administer them, and they knew it. So they gave up and just let him watch as they extracted vial upon vial of secret laden blood from him. 

He could see the refrigerator they’d wheeled in slowly filling up-- and he could see when they moved from one vein to the next. 

He’d stopped healing as fast, the puncture wounds oozing slowly when they went in search of a faster flow. He felt cold, too-- it had been a long time since the ice, but he felt a bit like that now. Slowing down as the chill seeped into his veins. 

He was still fighting, though. As best as he could. His thrashing was sporadic at best, and they’d strapped his legs down and put a collar around him and used more magnets to stick his middle to the wall… but still, he fought with everything he had, twitching under needles so they broke on his skin, jerking what he could, when he could. 

It wasn’t much. Wasn’t enough. And the cold was catching up to him.

He wasn’t sure what he’d done, or hadn’t done, to deserve the beating that came next-- the waist magnet was removed, and then three guys took turns going at him with their batons like he was a pinata at a kids’ party. 

Maybe they thought it’d get his blood flowing again. 

He certainly coughed a bit up. Ribs, he thought. Probably right into his lung. 

With any luck, that’d be enough to kill him, with his healing down to nothing, and then they’d have only as much blood as he had on him now-- no chance to recoup and make more. 

He was shivering now, his muscles contracting and jolting so that he felt like a puppet, bouncing on its strings. Being yanked around against his will, even though it was his own body doing it.

He hated this. Every moment of it. He wished he could pass out, or faint, or just die already-- not because of the pain, but because of the failure. His failure-- failure to protect the serum, to protect Bucky and Loki-- failure to save Loki from the situation he’d put him in. He’d told Loki to trust him, and had nearly sentenced him to this same fate. 

And he wished he could turn his mind off and just deal with the pain in his body, but that was fading, too, as the cold became numbness. 

He didn’t know where the refrigerator had gone, with all his blood in it. He didn’t know what the tubes in his arms were putting into him. But he couldn’t feel it. 

All he felt was ashamed.

Until he felt hands pulling at the cuffs and the collar, and hands lifting him down. He looked up, and saw Loki and Bucky. He didn’t know how they’d gotten there or how long it had taken, but for the first time in this whole ordeal, he felt his eyes well up with tears. 


	11. Psych 101

Getting Rogers out of Hydra was hardly any difficulty at all compared to keeping him in the abandoned warehouse that the soldier had turned into a facsimile of a home. 

At first, Loki had supposed him to be drugged, given the way his eyes glazed over and he would fight anyone and anything that seemed in his way-- be that Barnes, Loki, or a wall. 

They’d had to relocate him away from even the boarded up windows, and Loki had finally held him to the bed with magicked chains. 

“This does not feel like a kindness.” Loki murmured to the soldier as they stood back, watching Rogers struggle against the only bonds that he had no chance of breaking free of. 

“Trust me, if we let him out there in the shape he’s in? That’d be much worse, when he comes around. I’ve never seen him like this before.” 

Loki shook his head.    
“I have seen men like this, but only in battle, lost in berserker rages. This is…” 

“They broke him a little.” The soldier reported this calmly. “I’ve seen it on other guys, or somethin’ like it. It happens when you tear people down but don’t bother to build them back up again, don’t give them any hope to hold on to.” 

“Then is that not what we should be doing? Providing hope?” 

The soldier looked at Loki blankly.    
“You and me? Least suited guys for the job, I’d say.”

“And what of his other friends? The Avengers? Should we not call them for help, for his sake?”

“You gonna turn both of us and the time stone over to save him from a meltdown?” Barnes seemed surprised at the prospect.

“You would not?” Loki was equally surprised; he had supposed them to be friends, and Barnes at least friendly enough towards Rogers to stay around and respect his wishes regarding the usage of the stone. 

“Why not just use the stone, undo whatever made him--” Barnes gestured.

Loki looked again at Rogers, considering the ramifications of the proposal. 

“Let me talk to him first.” He decided. “We do not know what the root of this madness is, nor how much time we would have to undo and reshape to save him from his mind.” 

Barnes made a half bow and muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, “Be my guest.”

Loki was unamused, but strode across the room and moved aside the furniture they’d set up as a make-shift barrier to warn them if Rogers got free. 

“Captain.” Loki greeted, pulling a chair that had formed part of the circle around his bed with him and seating himself in it. 

Rogers snarled. 

“Give it back!” He yelled, and Loki shook his head. They’d heard variations of this for the last several hours, and their repeated questions about what ‘it’ was had led nowhere. 

But, he supposed, perhaps the tack had been wrong. 

After all, Rogers was at his best when rising to a challenge. 

Loki looked back over his shoulder, afraid that the Soldier might believe what he was about to say, then sighed and slipped into a mask of bored indifference. 

“No.” He said simply, letting the syllable drop from his lips like the first drop of alcohol into a wound. He hoped to help to heal the Captain, much as it might sting in the meantime. 

The Captain, all of a sudden, stopped fighting his restraints. 

“I should have known you were in on this.” He said; the clearest thought he’d expressed since they’d gotten him to safety. “Does Bucky know?” 

Loki scoffed and thought quickly. He knew so little of their history; better to take credit for that, as well. 

“He hardly knows who he is. Did you suppose he’d regrown his personality and memories so easily as that? No. He is obedient. He knows nothing.”

“What--” Barnes said, but Loki held up his hand for silence, hoping that Barnes would at least play along, if only out of curiosity. It did buy his silence, for a time, though Loki was sure that he had little time enough before this farce crumbled around him. 

“Do you have any idea how valuable it is?” Loki asked, hurrying to get to the point. 

Rogers grimaced. 

“Hydra’s been after it since before I even got it. Hell, Banner’s the way he is because scientists are so eager to replicate it. I can only imagine what the hell you’re going to do with it.” 

It was like a riddle-- what was the Captain missing? 

“What are you afraid I’ll do with it?” Loki asked, as if he were mocking him and not quite lost. 

“Make an army. People like me, and Bucky, but at your command.” Rogers looked so damnedly resigned. 

“And what would you give me to get it back, to ensure that I don’t do exactly that?” 

Loki watched as the question landed, and the Captain struggled to make sense of it. Then he saw something like sense return to his eyes. 

Rogers glanced back towards Bucky, then at Loki again. 

“The stone. There’s something you need me to do with the stone, isn’t there? That’s why you made Bucky take it, to get me involved.” 

Loki could see as his mind leapt to conclusions, forming conspiracies from thin air, and fashioning plans to take them down. He looked more like himself. 

“Yes.” Loki lied. “And now-- I want you to say it. Say what I took from you that puts you in my debt.”

The Captain’s face flashed through a hundred emotions: pride, anger, fear, resignation, disgust, shame. 

“My blood.” He said finally, quietly. “The serum. Let me go, and I’ll give you what you need. Only, don’t let Hydra have it.” 

“There.” Loki said, standing. “Was that so hard?” 

He turned and walked away and Barnes rushed forward. 

“What the hell have you done?” He hissed, even as Rogers shouted Loki’s name behind his back. 

“I have learned what we needed to know and given him something to fight against.” Loki told him calmly. “And now, we have to go back to Hydra. It seems we left something behind when we saved your friend.”


	12. I Think I've Broken Something

Hydra had been hard at work in their absence. It mattered very little, though; this was not a delicate extraction mission, nor something they were trying to avoid drawing attention to. Let the whole of Midgard see what happened to those who crossed Loki. 

And Hydra would know that Rogers was under his protection. For better or worse. 

Barnes and he laid waste to the facility. There was no way to account for every last bit of the Captain’s blood, but the smoking crater that once housed it was a good enough start. And they’d been away for only a matter of hours; enough time to ship it out, perhaps, but they were hoping that the facilities on site were greedy, as such men reliably were. 

They returned to the warehouse, in surprisingly good spirits, thanks to their success. Loki stopped short, though, when he saw Rogers at the door, the other Avengers at his back. 

“Ah.” Loki said, realizing he should have expected this. “I believe this is the part where I leave you to be rescued from my control.” 

Barnes gave him the darkest glare he’d seen from him yet. 

“Oh no you don’t, if I have to deal with them, so do you. And you wouldn’t leave  _ them _ with the time stone, would you?” 

Loki made a disgruntled noise in his throat. But the time for talking was done; Stark had levelled his suit’s weapons at them, and Loki could only sigh and raise his hands. 

“At least last time, you offered me a drink first.” He called in lieu of a greeting. 

“Last time you weren’t manipulating my brain washed best friend.” The Captain returned, his jaw tight and his face stormy, but his faculties, it seemed, returned to him. 

“Where have you been?” The Widow demanded, and Loki gestured at Barnes for him to do the talking. There was at least some chance they might believe  _ him. _

“We just trashed the Hydra facility that had Steve’s blood samples. You don’t get it-- this isn’t what it sounds like. Steve was in a state, so Loki led to him about controlling me, so Steve would tell us what was wrong. But he doesn’t. Loki’s got no control over me.”

The Widow arched a brow, and Steve looked between the two of them suspiciously. 

“Yeah, or maybe that’s what Loki wants you to tell us.” Stark returned. 

“His eyes aren’t all glowy and fucked up.” Barton pointed out. 

“They wouldn’t need to be, with how he’s been trained.” The Widow responded quickly. 

“Prove it.” Rogers said, taking a step forward. He kept his eyes fixed on Barnes.

“I don’t know how I can prove to you--” Loki began, his hands still raised, but Barnes turned and punched him without warning, his flesh and bone fist connecting solidly with Loki’s cheekbone. 

“He doesn’t control me.” Barnes repeated, as Loki peeled himself up from the floor. 

Loki rubbed at his suddenly aching face. 

“Charming.” He quipped. 

“You lied to me?” Rogers asked, looking equal parts confused and angry. 

“I apologize.” Loki said smoothly, still holding his own face. “It seemed like you needed it. And more-- we needed to know what was wrong, how to help. It… seemed a good idea at the time.”

Rogers’ face went blank. 

“You took advantage of my condition, and lied to me-- to help me.” 

“What makes you think you can believe that?” Stark interjected. “This is Loki we’re talking about, after all.” 

“Yeah.” Rogers said, still staring, even as Loki felt a bruise blossoming across his face. “You’re right.” 

Loki felt a sinking sensation that it took him a moment to identify as guilt. And he instantly hated it.


	13. Breathe In, Breathe Out

Steve had retreated to the rooms Tony had assigned to him back at the tower. Bucky was next door, washing the grime off while Steve reviewed the tapes that SHIELD had provided of Loki and Bucky’s total destruction of the Hydra facility that had held them. 

He didn’t know how to feel about it. 

On the one hand, the samples they’d taken from him were almost certainly destroyed, and that particular nest of assholes-- specifically the ones who had tortured him and Loki-- had been wiped out. But it was supposedly a SHIELD hospital. How many innocent people had been collateral? 

SHIELD was still working on figuring it out. 

It made Steve feel sick to his stomach. And when he thought back to before the carnage, how Loki had talked him out of his fugue-- 

It was hard to breathe. He could remember all too well the way Loki had looked and acted, aloof, cold, like turning on a switch, he was suddenly just as bad as he’d been at the start, before their uneasy truce and his sometimes occasional good deed that the Avengers tried not to look too far into. 

Steve tried to stand, feeling his throat getting hot and itchy-- almost like he was sick, or going to vomit, or getting ready to cry-- or all three, all at once. 

It felt, really, most like an asthma attack; something he hadn’t felt since gaining over a hundred pounds of muscle and speed healing. 

He collapsed to the ground, hand going to his neck as he felt his airway constricting. 

Panic bubbled up through him, and he choked on nothing, looking for help. 

“Captain Rogers, I wanted to apologize--” 

Loki walked through the door as though he hadn’t been chained up fifty floors below, last Steve saw him, like he belonged here and knew his way around. 

At the moment, Steve didn’t care; he’d never been happier to see him. 

Loki looked shocked, but rushed to his side, and he felt cool, almost cold hands sliding over his throat, looking for the source of the problem. Steve felt his eyes closing. 

“CALL STARK.” Loki demanded, and Steve heard Jarvis respond. He cracked his eyes open and saw a golden light forming under Loki’s hands, flowing into him, and he tried not to be scared-- Loki was helping, wasn’t he? It felt like it. Steve felt a thin stream of air going into his lungs. Not enough, but  _ something _ . 

And then the door was being broken in, and Tony was aiming his repulsor at Loki, again. 

“The Captain is suffering some kind of delayed effect from his time with Hydra. We must get him breathing, or he’ll die.” Loki spoke quickly and flatly, but some of his concern was still audible. Steve didn’t have time to ponder that. He sat up as best as he could-- and how had he ended up halfway in Loki’s lap?-- and nodded at Tony frantically. 

Tony moved to the wall, opened a panel, and like magic an oxygen tank and mask appeared. 

Tony crouched down and fitted it over Steve’s face. 

“Later, we’re gonna have a talk about how you got out of your cell.” He warned Loki. 

Loki didn’t answer though; his eyes were fixed on Steve. 

“It isn’t enough. We need to open his throat; we need to get air past the inflamed tissue.” 

Steve saw Loki casting around, and he saw when his eye lit on the desk. Loki lunged for it and came back gripping a pen. 

“Woah woah, hold up, you can’t perform an emergency tracheotomy with--” Tony started, but Loki ignored him again and simply murmured an apology before slamming it into Steve’s throat. 

“ _ Fuck _ .” Tony said, and quickly pulled the mask off, ripping the tube that fed into it out and feeding it through the new hole that Loki had made. 

Steve felt his lungs filling with air, and felt when Tony removed the tube a bit to let the air out. 

“Okay Steve?” Tony asked, and Steve held up a thumbs up, not sure how long they were supposed to do this. 

“Alright. Manage his breaths, I need to go to work on this inflammation. If all goes well, we’ll have you breathing on your own in short order.” Loki was glowing again, and his hands were on Steve’s neck, but this time he didn’t tense at all. 

“How the hell do you know all this?” Tony asked, following directions and giving Steve air and space to let it out again. Steve could feel himself exhaling through his mouth, and he wasn’t losing consciousness, but it was still markedly weird. 

“You think my spells are only good for exploding buildings?” Loki shot back, never shifting his focus from Steve. 

“I have no idea what they pumped into him, but he is reacting severely and badly. It would behoove us to figure it out before such a thing can be weaponized. If he is doing this poorly, imagine yourself, or the Widow…” Loki’s speaking tapered off, and Steve saw him frowning. 

“Yeah?” Tony asked. “And how are we going to do that? Supposing I believe you and this  _ is _ from Hydra and not you trying to play hero by solving a problem  _ you  _ made, you blew up that whole place! How are we supposed to learn anything from--” 

Steve felt a weird squeezing sensation in his throat, and then felt something moving up and out of it, and into his mouth. He opened up, and Loki floated a liquid out. In the next moment, Steve felt his airway opening back up, and sat up, pulling the tube out with one hand while he plugged the hole in his throat with his other. 

He could feel his healing already going to work on the puncture, but his voice was still creaky when he spoke. 

“That was some fast thinking. Thanks.” He looked between the two men at his side, and wondered, briefly, how the hell they’d come to this. 

Loki shook his head, and retrieved the glass from Steve’s counter, depositing the liquid into it. 

“Here’s your sample to examine. I think the Captain could use some rest.” 

“Steve.” Steve croaked. “You can call me Steve.” 

Loki tilted his head, face unreadable. 

“Steve, then. Let’s get you to bed, Steve.” 

Tony made a strangled noise, but didn’t move to stop them.


	14. Is Something Burning?

Loki returned to his cell, docile as you please, once he’d seen to the Captain and made sure he would be well. 

He was tired; it had been a long day with many ups and downs, not to mention the power expenditure that went into something like the destruction of a large building and the healing of an unknown ailment. 

And he’d had to mend his own cheekbone; self-healing was always more demanding. 

So when Loki readied himself to sleep, he was actually looking forward to it, and though he would never say as much, was somewhat glad for the Avengers’ security. At least it meant he could rest easy, even on a night like tonight where he could not erect his own spells for safety and magical warnings against attacks. 

“Jarvis, keep an eye on Loki, hey? We don’t need him going through anything similar to what Steve did.” Stark instructed. 

“Of course, sir.” His machine responded, and Loki gave him an appreciative nod, recognizing the action for what it was-- a warning, shrouded in kindness. Still, it was a good reminder to have. He was never alone. Even if he didn’t have any plans more dastardly in mind than perhaps snoring loudly for any who might bother watching him sleep. 

He stretched himself out on the bed he’d been provided and pulled the blankets up to his chest, exhaling and feeling as he sank down into the sheets. 

Humans and their comforts. He’d grown to love many things in his time on Midgard; this was one of those. 

He didn’t begin to feel that something was wrong for several minutes, until he registered a faint discomfort. This escalated into a prickling, and then a dampness-- he was sweating. 

Mildly irked, he threw the covers off and rolled onto his side, letting his back air out a bit while he searched for a more comfortable position. But it kept getting warmer; he was aware of it in stages. 

He stripped his shirt away, then the pajama pants, until he was left in only the Midgardian underthings he’d been given, and even then it felt like too much. The heat was oppressive, and he felt dizzy from it. 

There was a sink in his cell-- he filled a plastic cup with water and drank it quickly, then twice more, before feeling ill at the thought of taking in any more water. 

He filled the cup again and upended it over his head, careless of the puddle it left behind, and sat heavily on the bed, unable to do much more than that. The water had warmed to match everything else, and now was only a source of misery-- wet, atop the heat, rather than as a relief from it. 

“Jarvis? That’s your name, isn’t it? Why is it so hot?” 

He felt like he was panting his words, the air that came out of him somehow warmer than his cage, so that he could feel it drying out his lips, urging them to crack. 

“Your body temperature is low. The environment has been adjusted to raise it.” 

“Low?” He repeated dumbly, his mind trying to understand past the fog of heat that was overwhelming him. 

“I have alerted Mr. Stark, and he will see the message when he wakes.” 

Loki was shaking his head before the computer had finished speaking. 

“I can’t-- can’t wait that long.” 

“Are you ill?” Jarvis asked, sounding puzzled. 

“I’m too warm!” Loki snapped. He tried to stand, but felt dizzy and sat back down. 

“The temperature is currently one hundred fourteen degrees, to compensate for your body temperature, which has risen to eighty six. You are experiencing acute hypothermia and should lay down until you have attained a normal core temperature.” 

“No.” Loki tried. “I’m not-- that isn’t how I--”

“He’s a fucking alien, Jarvis. You can’t use human baselines for him!” 

Barnes let the door to the room outside of the cell fall short behind him. 

“God, you’re roasting him alive.” Barnes added. “Turn the heat off, let’s get it cold in here. Now.” 

Loki stared, unable to feel even relief, let alone the discomfort he would have at being found in a cell, in his underwear, alone, arguing with something that wasn’t even fully conscious. 

“I-- thanks.” He managed. 

Barnes snorted. 

“I came down to say the same-- I heard you saved Steve’s life earlier. But uh… maybe we save that conversation for later.” 

Loki tilted his head up, sucking in the cool air that came from the vents. He didn’t answer, too busy willing himself to cool down. 

“Yeah. Okay.” Barnes said, apparently watching him. “You uh, you gonna be good now?” 

“I… yes, I think so. Provided the computer does not decide I breathe water or some such thing.” He cast an angry and suspicious glare towards the suddenly silent machine. 

Barnes shook his head. 

“Yeah, well, if it does, you can ask it to deliver a message to me, and I’ll come save your ass again, I guess.” He hesitated, like he wanted to say more, then just shook his head and left.


	15. Into the Unknown

When he was removed from the cell the next day-- or let out, depending on how you looked at it, he had managed to get himself back to a state of being reasonably well put together. 

“So I uh-- heard you didn’t sleep so great. Sorry about that. I had forgotten that Jarvis has problems when I ask him to monitor Thor’s vitals, too.” 

Loki flapped his hand dismissively at Stark’s apology; he didn’t feel like going into the fact that his baseline would be wildly different from even Thor’s. It didn’t matter much. 

“How is the Captain?” He asked instead. 

Stark hummed. 

“Seems fine now-- that was a pretty wild treatment, though, so I think it’d be good to keep an eye on him.” 

He held the door open to allow Loki to board the elevator. 

“We got breakfast delivered, so I imagine he’ll be there-- and Barnes, too.” Stark looked wary, and Loki wondered what part of the gathering caused that. 

He found it odd that Stark seemed suddenly at ease around him, but perhaps his performance with Rogers the night before, and his relative lack of ill-will after being nearly roasted by his machine had given him some sense of confidence in Loki’s intentions. 

Bold of him to assume that Loki’s goodwill extended to him. But then again, all of his windows were thus far intact, so perhaps there was some small basis for it. It wasn’t a high bar to clear. 

“You seem… somewhat less than enthused about breakfast.” Loki offered it as an observation, but it was a question, ever so delicate, probing gently to learn more about these people he’d fought so often. He’d certainly never been allowed this close before, into their home. Or, home-base, at least. He knew Rogers had a place of his own, outside of the tower. 

Stark lifted one shoulder listlessly. But before he had a chance to elaborate, the elevator announced their arrival with a cheerful ping and the doors slid open onto a scene of surprising domesticity. 

The Avengers were gathered around the table, shy only Stark and alongside Barnes and a woman that Loki only knew peripherally as Pepper Potts, Stark’s good half. 

“So, now we’re all here-- good morning everyone--” Stark began, but was interrupted by Barnes snorting.

“It’s after noon.” Banner pointed out, clearly amused, and Loki blinked. He must have slept longer than he’d thought, to compensate for the heat and his efforts the day prior. 

“Well, yeah, okay. After noon. Happy brunch. Point is-- Loki. Steve. James Barnes-- what are we calling you these days? Bucky?” 

Stark’s edgy energy was back, and Loki realized it was centered around the Soldier. Fascinating, that Stark was literally more at ease with Loki at his back than with Barnes at his table. 

“James is probably fine.” He said mildly, buttering some toast and casually avoiding eye contact. 

Rogers, too, seemed unsurprised but on guard. 

Interesting. And charming. A crack in their united front, and Loki wasn’t even the cause. He ought to be offended, he supposed. Instead, he was merely amused. 

“Right. So. James… after you stopped in on Loki last night, did you notice anything… weird?” 

Rogers looked thoroughly confused-- Loki wondered at that. Had Barnes not told him about his stepping in? Loki would think he would-- to curry favor, prove himself as a good person, if nothing else. 

Barnes sat his toast down, only a single bite taken from it. 

“Define weird.” He said slowly, almost like the words were a threat. 

“Your arm.” Stark said, clearly trying not to sound eager and coming off as smug instead. “I got your message after you were asleep, and asked Jarvis to run a scan, make sure Loki didn’t do anything to you.” 

Loki felt his mouth falling open to protest, and, without looking, Stark held up his hand to stop him speaking. 

“Your arm has some weird stuff going on with it, but it doesn’t match Loki’s power signature. And last night, it started flaring up. So, did you notice anything weird?”

“You’re asking if I noticed anything weird with my arm while I was asleep?” Barnes reiterated, speaking slowly, as if he was becoming more and more convinced that Stark was an idiot.    
“No. Because I was asleep.”

“Hang on, why were you scanning him in his sleep?” Rogers demanded. “And why would you visit Loki?” 

“To have a chat, Steve, why else do people go see one another?” Barnes snapped back. “Anyway, it didn’t matter, because when I got there, Stark’s robot was in the process of frying the guy’s brain, so…” Barnes trailed off with a sharp glance in Stark’s direction. 

Rogers whipped his head around, glaring at Stark who raised his hands defensively.    
“Loki?” He asked firmly, turning his eyes on him next. “Are you alright?”

“I should be asking the same of you, though your voice is much improved. In fairness, Stark’s machine was concerned because my vital readings did not match that of humans. No harm was intended.” Loki spoke mildly and strode forward to take a seat directly across from Barnes.    
“But tell me more about this ‘weirdness’. Do you suppose it’s related to the time stone?” 

He helped himself to some bread and jam, and began to paint the latter across the former, performatively, of course-- a show of unconcern. 

When he glanced up, though, it was his turn to receive the full weight of Barnes’ glare. 

“Time stone?” The widow asked sharply.

“Oh. I’m sorry-- did they not know?” Loki asked, pretending at surprise.

“Is there a magical artifact in my house, and you didn’t tell me?” Stark demanded. 

Banner stood. 

“I’m sorry, I’m gonna excuse myself. Ah-- Pepper, can you update me or give me a call if I’m needed?” 

“Of course.” She said smoothly, watching him go then turning her eyes back to Rogers and Barnes, who looked both cornered and uncomfortable. 

Loki took a bite of his toast. 

“Look, as much as I’m not excited about having the time stone here, I think we’re burying the lede. What weird stuff did Jarvis pick up, Tony?” the Hawk spoke up, having held his peace and just made faces for a bit, but, as ever, keeping his eye on the big picture. Loki shot him an appreciative glance.

“Like I said, it started flaring up-- and with the time stone present-- I assume you have it stored  _ in _ the arm?” Stark asked pointedly, his gaze dropping to Barnes’ shirt sleeve covered prosthetic. 

He pushed the sleeve up and opened a compartment, revealing the time stone, glowing a soft green. 

To Loki’s eyes, it was pulsing, however faintly, but that wasn’t the real concern. 

“It’s corrupting the metal. Or-- the metal is absorbing it?” He murmured, surprised and enthralled. “I’ve never seen something like that happen before.”

“What do you mean?” Steve asked, at the same time as Barnes snapped “It’s  _ what _ ?” 

“Jarvis?” The Widow asked, standing to come closer. 

“The stone is emitting a low level of power. I can confirm that the metal of Sergaent Barnes’s arm is absorbing it. It is, however, also releasing it back and amplifying the power in the stone’s direction at a .20 percent increase from the original radiation.”

Loki nodded.

“The pulsing-- the arm is absorbing the power, storing it, and then releasing it back stronger. This, in turn, overflows the limits of the stone-- causing it to release more.” 

Barnes immediately plucked the stone from the compartment with his flesh hand. 

“That’s all well and good,” Loki said, “but that leaves us with one problem: we’ll need to draw the power out of your arm.” 

Rogers looked to him.    
“Can you do that?” 

“I can.” Loki said. “I cannot guarantee there will not be lingering effects, but the excess we can draw out. Only, I will need to do something with it.”

Loki turned to look at Stark. 

“Are you capable of building some sort of containment for it?”

“I don’t even know what ‘it’ is, that’s a power source unlike any we’ve seen before.” 

“And the longer it stays within the cavity of Barnes’s arm, the more it grows.” Loki said calmly, then sighed. 

“I can… try to ground it, or disperse it, but until I try, until I have it in my hands, I will have little idea as to the best way. Is there a safe place that Barnes and I may go to try and mitigate any damage we may cause?” 

Loki saw Barnes narrow his eyes, and it did not escape him the way his flesh fist clenched all the tighter around the stone. 

“I have the space upstate-- pretty isolated, big plot of land. That should be safest. I’m going with you, of course-- I gotta see this. And I doubt Steve’s gonna want to stay behind.” 

“Nope.” Rogers responded quickly. 

“We’ll hold down the fort here.” The widow responded, clearly not needing to ask the hawk how he felt about such exercises. Loki nodded in acknowledgement. 

“To upstate, then.”

\---

The upstate facility seemed to be somewhat more like a hangar than a tower, which Loki was grateful for. Less to fall on them, should something go wrong. And Stark insisted it was well built, launching into specifications and logistics than Loki had no interest in and didn’t understand. 

Instead, upon arrival, he’d begun arranging a table with chairs for himself and Barnes-- opposite sides, to keep the surface between them. For Barnes’ peace of mind, more than anything else. 

Loki settled down and gestured at the table.

“If you’re ready.” He said. 

Barnes took his seat, and lay the limb out. Loki had been, admittedly, curious about it, and was finally being allowed his first close up examination of the thing. 

“The workmanship is beautiful. Utilitarian, yes, but intricate and graceful all the same.” Loki ran his fingers gently up the edges where he knew the hollow was, able to feel the energy humming beneath his fingertips. 

“I don’t need a narration.” Barnes said, sounding uncomfortable and cross, which Loki decided likely translated to scared and trying to hide it. 

“Of course.” He answered smoothly. 

The panel folded back and away, and he dipped his fingertips into the glowing green pool that had formed in the absence of the time stone. 

“Ah.” He said, brow furrowing as he tried to make sense of what it was. 

It was cold and hummed, the sensation not unlike being buffeted by a river. But it climbed his arm, and he felt it pulling at him, trying to toss him to or fro, back into the past and forward into the future simultaneously. 

He put out a few tendrils of his own power, anchoring himself to the here and now, and urged the energy of the stone up over his fingers, across the back of his hand, and then, as he rolled his wrist, into his palm to pool. 

Once he held it and was certain it would not leap forth nor spill through the cracks, he flicked his eyes back to Barnes. 

There was no further trace of it there, though the metal sang with the empty echoes of a newly hollow vessel. 

“I think you must take care to keep it separate from that metal, going forward. It is… It reacts oddly.” 

Indeed, it was vibrating with a movement he was not used to feeling from time related magics. It had become agitated with its constant duplication, and it wanted now to burst free. 

He frowned. 

He could not put it to ground in such a state; it would merely spread itself out, affecting all it touched. 

He could attempt to contain it with his own magics, however, and with any luck they might be able to lock that away in more conventional metals, for study or future use. 

This course of action decided upon, Loki called his magics up and through him, pulling from the soles of his feet, though the core of him and down his arm to wrap around the power in his palm. 

But in doing so, he made one critical error. 

Before the power was contained, Loki became unmoored. And the power was interested only in spreading, now. He felt as it latched on to his power and tried to pull back, but it was no good, and too late. 

The power of the stone slid within him, and he felt as time within him lurched, shifted, and  _ changed _ .


	16. A Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day

When Loki woke, he was stretched out on the floor, and he couldn’t remember what he’d been doing before this.

More pressingly, he didn’t know any of the faces peering down at him. 

“So, did it work?” Asked the dirtiest looking of the three. 

“Are you alright?” Asked the fair haired one, shooting the other a fondly reproachful glare. 

The one with the foppishly shaped facial hair frowned. 

“What the hell happened, there, shimmers?” 

Loki blinked and frowned. 

“Do I… know you?” He asked slowly, reaching up to grasp his aching temple as he sat up. He took the opportunity to look around, and it did not help him to determine where he was  _ at all _ . 

A faint sense of  _ wrong  _ began to make itself known as the three men traded looks. 

Loki got to his feet and swayed a little as he registered that he was a good deal further… up… than he was used to being. 

“Where have you taken me? And what have you done to me? Wha--” He reached up to touch his throat. 

His voice had deepened. He was taller. Had they-- had they stolen years from him?

“How-- how many?” He asked, voice shaking appallingly. He felt close to tears, and the three men looked confused. 

“Hey, Loki…” The blonde one spoke again, and Loki registered how odd it was that he seemed adult, and yet his face was clean. He reached up to touch his own chin, and was disappointed to find he was similarly clean shaven. 

“What do you remember?” The most bearded of them asked. 

Loki tried to focus on the question, tried to cut through the panic he felt that threatened to overwhelm him. 

“I…” He began, and then stopped. He could tell there were a great many memories, but they seemed out of reach. 

The dirty one thrust a metal arm forward, and Loki sprang back, ungainly on his too long legs and forced to flail his arms wildly to regain his balance. 

“Did you get it all out?” the man seemed to be growling more than speaking. 

Loki shook his head and continued backing away, unsure where he was or who they were or what they wanted. He just wanted to go home. 

He spun on his heel and took off at a run, out the first doors he saw and across a green lawn. 

“Heimdallllllll!” He called, only hoping he could outpace them long enough for the gatekeeper to send help or bring him back. He wondered where Thor was, their guards, their tutors, wondered how these men had gotten him away… 

And then he was sprawling face forward into the turf, arms wrapped around his middle and pulling him down. He kicked and thrashed, well aware that he was outmatched as always when it came to wrestling, but unwilling to be taken back without a fight. 

“LokI!” Grunted the blonde one, and Loki found himself pinned down. 

“What do you want of me? Do you think my father won’t have your heads for this?” He demanded. 

“Loki, something went wrong with the time stone. Do you remember trying to pull the power out of Bucky’s arm?”

Loki stilled, unspilled tears filling the edges of his vision. 

“Timestone?” He repeated, sensing at least some answers. 

“Yeah, the… the time stone, Bucky had it in his arm, and it left some power behind. You were trying to pull it out and you fell down. Does any of this sound familiar?” The man let go of his wrists and sat up as the other two arrived behind him. 

Loki shook his head. 

“This is going to sound dumb as hell…” the dirty one muttered, then cleared his throat. “Loki, how old are you?” 

The facial hair one looked sharply at the arm guy. Bucky. 

“Are you saying--?” 

“Four Hundred, eighty-nine.” Loki said firmly. 

They all stared, then the light haired man shook his head and stood, offering his hand to Loki to help him up. 

“I don’t know how old you were when we started, so I have no idea what that means.” He spoke softly, as if trying not to scare Loki any further. 

“So we’re buying this?” The bearded one asked, sounding incredulous. “Need I remind you this is Loki? He could be acting.” 

“What good would that do?” Barnes asked. “What possible benefit would this give him?” 

“It’d get your guards down, for one. Make you defensive of him for another.” Loki was really starting to dislike the man with the beard. But he took the blonde’s hand and stood, just the same, crossing his arms over himself protectively. 

“I uh-- want to know where we are.” He asked, this time more of a request, his voice quieter. 

“Northern New York.” The beard guy said. 

“Uh, Earth. Midgard.” The blonde filled in, somewhat more helpfully. 

That, at least, made some sense to Loki, and he looked around, stunned. 

“This is-- but, I was just on Midgard, and it was so…” He gestured, trying to find the right words, something less rude than the few that sprang to mind. 

“I think, if we’re guessing right, you’re actually much older than you remember being. So yeah, we’re not as um. Primitive? As you probably remember.” 

Loki nodded mutely. 

“Can we go back inside, sit down, and talk about this?” The kind man asked. The other two looked between themselves, and Loki found himself stepping closer to the light haired one, unsure what such glances meant. 

“Who are you?” He asked, instead of answering, and was mildly alarmed when the kind one reached up and knocked himself on the head. 

“Of course, sorry-- I’m Steve, this is Bucky--” He gestured at the dirty one with the armoured arm, and then at the other, “And this is Tony. We’re uh-- we were working with you before your accident.” 

Not, Loki noticed, ‘friends’. But then, why should he have hoped that his elder self had any better luck on the front? 

“Alright.” Loki said, then swept his hand forward. “Lead the way. I will come with you.” 

It wasn’t until just that moment that he wondered why Heimdall hadn’t answered him. Had something happened to Asgard? To Thor? His mother and father? Their people? 

He bit his lip against more questions, and let Steve lead him back into the building he’d made his escape from. 

They got him seated on a chair that was considerably plusher than the last Midgardian seat he’d experienced, the dirty-- Bucky-- had pushed a warm cup of tea into his hands, and they had waited for him to take a few sips before they began talking. 

“Do you know how old you are in relative Midgardian years?” Tony asked, and Loki made a face. 

“Not off the top of my head. How old do you grow to be?” 

Tony stared for a moment, then cleared his throat. “Let’s say a hundred, just to make it nice and round.”

Loki looked down and away. 

“Ah, I’m sorry.” He said softly. 

The other three looked between themselves, and he wondered if they understood how short their lives were, truly. 

“Asgardians may expect to reach five thousand years.” Loki explained, speaking gently. 

Tony let out a low whistle, then did a double take.    
“So you’re-- what, ten? Roundabouts?”

“I’m four hundred, eighty-nine.” Loki repeated, a touch defensively. 

“You’re  _ a child _ .” Bucky responded, more forcefully, leveling a look in Tony’s direction. 

Loki had had enough of  _ that _ instantly.

“I am a prince!” He insisted, standing while careful not to spill his tea. “And I’ll have you know I am already a magician. Which is more than any of you can say!”

He saw a smile grace Steve’s face, and felt a small warmth high up in his chest from it. 

“I’m glad to hear that. Do you think you could figure out how to get back to being an adult?” 

Loki chewed on his lower lip while he thought, then shook his head. 

“Not on my own. My mother will know what to do, though. I just need to reach her. Uh… speaking of…” He trailed off, afraid to ask. “Earlier I called for Heimdall, and he didn’t answer. Do you know… why that might be?” 

Another exchange of glances, this time between Tony and Steve. Loki hated that his body was apparently grown, and still he was being treated like a yearling. 

“You uh, might want to sit down your highness.” Tony said, and Loki felt his stomach drop, but he did as he was told. 

“First off-- I’m real sorry Loki, but according to Thor, your mom died a few years ago.” 

Loki felt his mouth fall open, but he couldn’t begin to name the sound that came out. 

“And Heimdall?” He asked at length, followed by, “My father? Where is Thor?”

“I uh, don’t think you’re on good terms with Asgard.” Tony said, as delicately as he could. 

Loki swallowed. 

“And Thor?” Thor wasn’t Asgard-- surely whatever he’d done, Thor, at least, would-- 

“Thor’s king now.” 

This time, Loki couldn’t stop the tears from coming to his eyes. 

“ _ Thor _ banished me?” Loki felt so betrayed, so lost and alone, of a sudden. 

“No, I think that was on your dad.” Tony said, as if that were any consolation. 

“But I can’t go h-home?” 

“Tony!” Steve warned, and Tony shut his mouth, obviously thinking better of whatever he had been about to say.    
“That’s probably enough for now, Loki. I’m sorry, I can tell this has all been a shock. Tony, are there rooms here? Loki probably could use some time to himself.” 

“Some time…” Loki murmured, then snapped. 

“Time! Which of you has the time stone?” 

“Annnd there it is.” Tony said, crossing his arms and sitting back in his chair smugly. 

“What?” Loki asked, watching as again, Adult Glances were traded. “Did I say something wrong? It’s just-- I can maybe make this right. I have to learn how to use the time stone. Then we can go back, save my mother, get her to help make me big again--” Loki could feel his spirits rising, some hope restored. They had the means to make everything right. He’d just have to apply himself to it, something his teachers said he was marvellous at, when he cared to try. 

“Woah there, hold up.” Bucky raised his hands. 

“Older you said that we had to be careful-- no long jumps, no frequent jumps. Going back like that could tear up… the fabric of time? I think?” Bucky looked to Steve for confirmation, and he nodded. 

“And even with a healthy fear of the thing, you ended up getting turned into a kid again--”

“Supposing he really is a kid again.” Tony interjected, and Steve gestured at Loki’s face. 

“I guarantee, you never saw him make any of those expressions as an adult. Now shush, Tony.” 

Loki wondered what expressions he  _ did _ make, if not these, but let that one go. 

“I’m not afraid of the time stone.” He insisted, jutting his jaw out stubbornly. 

Steve just sighed and ran his hand up his forehead and back through his hair. 

“Yeah, Loki, I know. That’s the problem. Look, let’s-- why don’t I set you up in a room, you can just relax for a minute while we figure out what our next steps are. Okay?” 

“You aren’t my boss. I outrank you.” Loki insisted. 

“Not on Earth you don’t.” Bucky countered calmly. “Now come on. We’re gonna get you a room, you have a nap, we’ll reconvene when you wake up, okay, your highness?” 

Loki firmed his jaw, but didn’t protest any more, because he was pretty sure they would only call him childish if he did. 

He let them lead him down a hall and to a room, then duplicated himself while their backs were turned and made the real him invisible, letting them lock an illusory version of himself in the room. 

It was the first full look he got at his own adult face, and he was so shocked that he forgot to pay attention, and he almost let Steve walk into him. He got out of the way quickly, and let them go wherever they were headed, taking a moment to study himself. 

He wasn’t sure how much older he was but… it didn’t look as if the years had been kind. 

He looked tired, and thin. He had the fading signs of a bruise across his face, and small scars… but more than anything, he looked… oddly haunted. 

He wondered what had happened between himself and Asgard, wondered if that might be the cause, and decided to find the other men to see what he could learn. 

It wasn’t hard to track them, all things considered. They were not quiet. 

“--seems pretty legitimate to me, Tony. Have you ever seen him cry before?” Steve was saying as he approached, silently as his much practiced sneaking could be. 

“You think he can’t cry on cue to get what he wants? He’s trying to get us to let him have the stone, same as before, only this time with an ‘I’m so innocent, look at me, I never invaded anyone’ mask over the whole thing, just to make you more willing to part with it.” 

An invasion? Well, he supposed that would explain some of the hardship on his face. He’d never really seen himself as a general, but if life led him there, well, he would take it. 

“You think his first thought of a cover story would be ‘we should bring back my mom to help me out’ if he wasn’t a kid?” Bucky asked, and he saw Steve look at him gratefully.    
“Anyway,” Bucky continued, “this isn’t an ‘us’ thing. I have the stone, it’s my call. And I’m sorry, Stevie, but much as I do believe his brain might have gotten zapped back to baby, that doesn’t make me  _ more _ confident in his ability to use it, and not make things somehow worse.” 

“Okay, fair, but what else do we have, options wise? Do we take him to Strange?” Loki wondered who that was, but Strange was clearly an unfavorable option; Bucky dismissed that with a single sharp jerk of his head.

“Well, what about Thor?” Tony asked. “If anyone can tell if he’s faking, it’d be Thor. And maybe he’s got someone there who knows what we’re dealing with.” 

Loki drew his breath in, the sound sharp enough to apparently alert Steve and Bucky to his presence. 

“Damn it, Tony!” Steve said, even as Bucky reached out and caught him blindly, the contact dispelling Loki’s invisibility.

“I want to see Thor. If you can call him, do it. I want my brother.” Loki pointed at the floor and stomped, an order turned halfway into the threat of a fit. 

“I don’t know, is that a good idea, you think?” Steve asked. “Loki, I don’t know how to explain-- he might not be happy to see you.” 

This was unfathomable to Loki, and he felt his eyes beginning to water again.    
“Then I’ll fix it! Whatever I did, I can make it right. But I need Thor here to make that happen, to help me put everything back the way it’s supposed to be. Please?” 

Loki was not, he realized, above begging. His whole world was lost to him now, his home, mother-- dead? --it seemed impossible. Heimdall wouldn’t answer his calls, and these men treated him like some combination weapon to be feared and child to pity, and he just wanted to understand, and fix things, and bury himself in the arms of his family. 

They hadn’t even told him what had come of his father, he realized. 

“Please, call my brother. I just want to go home!” The last word came out a wail. 

“Hoo boy.” Tony said, standing and edging his way out of the room. 

Steve came forward and wrapped Loki in a hug, and as he sniffled into Steve’s shirt, he heard Bucky saying what he’d hoped to hear.    
“Go on, call the guy’s brother. Like you said, if anyone can sort this out…” 

Loki clutched at Steve like a lifeline and let himself hope that things would be alright.


	17. I Did Not See That Coming

When Thor arrived, the sky announced his mood before the expression on his face did. Both could be described as stormy, and Loki whimpered a little and all but hid behind Steve. 

_ “That’s  _ Thor?” He asked, voice hushed and a new fear taking root there. Steve swallowed-- this whole situation was messed up, and this new version of Loki felt like something he shouldn’t be seeing. He knew the Loki they knew would never want to be seen like this. 

It had been a revelation, the expressions he was capable of, the openness that a younger Loki in this body was capable of. Even his bearing was looser, less restrictive, less uptight. 

Steve hadn’t really realized how rigidly Loki held himself, both figuratively and literally, until he had this version in comparison. And, for all that he seemed vulnerable and innocent and all of Steve wanted to protect him, he couldn’t help but want the Loki he knew back. Which was a confusion sensation, and one that didn’t need to be scrutinized too closely. 

He was more helpful as a fully grown adult, was all. 

“Loki.” Thor’s greeting sounded more like a warning, and Steve found himself raising his hand to keep Thor back a pace or two. 

“There’s been an accident, Thor. He’s not who you think he is.” Steve spoke quickly, then paused, aware he’d already messed it up. “Well, he is, he’s Loki but…” 

“Thor, I messed with a timestone, and the things they’re saying-- none of it makes any sense. Mother dead and I’m banished and you-- what happened to your eye?”

Loki sounded plaintive and young, and from his position between them, Steve could see the way his words hit Thor like a slap. 

“What is this?” Thor demanded, pulling his gaze to meet Steve’s, then Tony’s, then finally Bucky’s. 

Bucky held up the time stone.

“No trick. Just what we said, an accident. He says he’s like, five hundred years old.” 

Loki, thankfully, didn’t correct him about the exact age. But Steve could feel him all but trembling behind him. 

“Thor?” Loki asked, voice small and lost sounding. “Why do they hate me? Why do you?” 

“We were hoping you’d know how to tell if he was faking it.” Tony said, suddenly, and Steve glared at him. 

He didn’t know how anyone thought Loki could be this good of an actor. 

That possibility seemed not to have occurred to Thor before then, but he turned a considering look back at Loki, and Steve knew he wouldn’t like whatever came next. But he figured Thor wouldn’t hurt his brother. Especially not if it was what it seemed like, and the brain in Loki’s head hadn’t done anything wrong, yet. 

“I cannot tell.” Thor said finally. “I have rarely been able to see through the best of my brother’s lies. But I can think of a test.”

“I’ll take it!” Loki said eagerly, stepping out from behind Steve. Steve wished he wouldn’t, wished he’d stayed back there, where he could keep him safe, but he fully acknowledged how ridiculous that was. The guy might be a kid inside, but he was at least a full inch taller than Steve, and could shoot magic out of his hands and probably still deadlift a semi truck. 

He caught Bucky staring at him, and shrugged, hoping that conveyed that they should go along with it. 

“Loki, what would you think if I told you that you were adopted?” Thor asked, and Steve felt his mouth fall open.

That was a hell of a way not to pull a punch, considering that was apparently the news that had sent Loki into a homicidal rage spiral in the first place. 

This version of Loki, though, younger, less grown into his powers, merely went still. 

“That’s not true.” He whispered. “I-- it can’t be.” He sounded doubtful, hurt, like he might cry again. Steve rolled his hand into a fist, telling himself to ride it out, wait and see where this was going. 

“It is. Father brought you home from Jotunheim after the last battle with Laufey. You are a Jotnar runt, who was left to freeze to death, and he felt sorry for you. My parents lied to you your entire life.”

Loki shook his head horrified, and took a few steps back, and still Steve let him be, let Thor do what he needed to-- trusted he was doing this for a reason. 

“Why are you saying this, Thor? I thought-- you can’t mean it. Mother’s dead, isn’t she? She wouldn’t have… she would have told me.” 

“Oh, she did.” Thor advanced, eyes skating across Loki’s face, looking for something. Steve hoped he found it soon; this was painful to hear, and much worse to watch. 

“She told you, Loki. Right before you killed her.” 

Loki backed into a wall, his hands pressed against it at his sides, and shook his head.    
“I didn’t. I wouldn’t. I-- please Thor, tell me this isn’t true.” He was begging now, pleading. 

“And then you killed Odin.” Thor continued, advancing ruthlessly. Steve didn’t think it was the truth, but for all he knew it could be. “And then you tried to take the throne. Tried to have me killed.” 

“No, not you, Thor, not Mother, not-- why? Why would I-- I couldn’t, I didn’t--” Loki had tears streaming down his face now, and he looked like he was going to be sick. 

“And when you were banished from Asgard for your treason-- allowed to live because I still thought of you as my brother--” 

“No--’ Loki moaned, the past tense clearly not having escaped him. 

“You came here, and brought an army of mercenaries, and you slaughtered-- how many, Stark? Hundreds? Thousands?” 

Loki slid down the wall to grasp at his knees, rolling into a ball and keening. 

“I don’t-- I’m sorry. I… If I did all of that, you should just kill me. I don’t know why I--” His words dissolved into gasping sobs, and Steve had had enough. 

“Okay, Thor, back off. Do you have your answer yet?” He demanded, putting a hand on Thor’s shoulder before he could take the last couple of steps toward Loki. 

Thor turned and sighed. 

“Aye. He is not lying. He does not know the truth of any of this, and he did not deny it or defend himself. This is my brother, though… from long ago.” 

“Great. Fantastic. Thanks for that,” Tony said, babbling through his own horrified reaction. 

Bucky was looking around as if he was weighing something, but Steve didn’t have time for that. 

He knelt beside the ball of misery that Loki had become. 

“Hey, Loki? Hey, listen, that was-- that was the test, okay? You passed, it’s okay now-- everyone believes you.” 

“But I’m a monster.” Loki moaned, and curled into himself more, if possible. 

Steve looked up and glared silently at Thor, demanding without words that he fix this. 

Thor heaved a sigh and sat down on the ground in front of his brother. 

“Loki?” He asked, the name now a soft rumble that was much less of a threat. “I need you to know that I lied.”

Loki looked up, his face streaked with tears and his nose running, his hair sticking to his face in wet tendrils that curled slightly in the damp.

“I’m not--?” He asked, looking hopeful, and Thor shook his head. 

“You are my brother.” He said firmly. “You did not kill our parents. I am sorry, Loki. I needed to tell these falsehoods because the older you would know the truth, and would not be able to resist the urge to clear his name.” 

Loki sobbed again, then launched himself forward and into his brother’s arms. 

Thor held him, and Steve felt again as if he was intruding. But after watching all of that, he didn’t feel like he should leave, either. 

“Thor?” Bucky asked, and they all looked up at him, surprised at the interruption, all but Steve probably having forgotten he was there. 

“If you have a sec, I need to talk to you about this time stone, and how we go about fixing this whole,” he waved his hand at Loki, then at his own arm, “thing. And I’d like to talk to you alone.” He gave Steve a significant glance that Steve didn’t know how to decode, but when Thor nodded and gently pushed Loki away, he realized it probably meant that he was on babysitting duty. 

And judging by the way Tony had retreated to the bar, he was probably on his own. 

“Why don’t you take a break, Tony, maybe pull up the tapes for them in case Thor has some insight on how to reverse what happened?” He framed it as a suggestion, btu Tony snapped off a salute and looked about as relieved as Loki had upon hearing the false accusations had been lies. 

“Yeah, I can do that. Cool.” Tony took off, carrying his glass with him, and Steve eased Loki back up and over to the couch before steering him into sitting down. 

“Alright there champ, that was… rough.” He winced, not sure what he was supposed to be doing, much less how to do it. 

“But I passed.” Loki said quietly, looking down at his hands in his lap. 

“You sure did. And now Thor’s here, with any luck, we’ll get it set to rights soon.” 

“He said he lied,” Loki said slowly, before looking up. “He didn’t say it was all lies. And he didn’t tell me the truth. You said my mother was dead. Is that true?” 

Steve swallowed, feeling very much out of his depth. 

“It is. I’m sorry.” he confirmed. Loki just nodded and looked down again. “Thor said it was a-- a dark elf, I think. During an attack on Asgard.” 

“But they are extinct.” Loki said, looking back up, his face full of distrust. 

“I don’t know the whole story.” Steve admitted, pulling out his stark phone and pulling up a video, “But I know that some of them came to Earth, and there’s some video of Thor from our news, fighting them.” 

Loki accepted the phone and watched the screen, a mingled look of fascination and horror on his face as he watched Thor fighting the dark elf leader. When the video ended, he passed it back to Steve delicately, as if he was afraid he would break it. 

“So Thor avenged her, at least.” He said, as if he was trying to find some comfort in that. He took a deep breath, then pushed on. “What of my father?” 

“That one I don’t know.” Steve admitted. “I just know that Thor has had to split his time between here and Asgard since his passing.” 

“So he is also dead.” Loki confirmed. Looking up this time, and Steve wondered if he was trying to get the tears to stay in his eyes by sheer force of gravity. 

“And me?” Loki asked, not looking back at Steve. “Is it true, what he said, about my being adopted?” 

“Seems like it.” Steve said, apologetically. “Sorry about that. And it sounds like… when you found out for real, when you were supposed to in the timeline… it was a bad time for it. Hit you hard. You uh… did some bad things.” He winced, wishing he knew better what all that entailed, beyond the vagaries of the reports they’d put together based on Thor’s rambling and nonlinear retelling. 

Loki’s mouth thinned into a tiny line, and Steve knew for certain he was trying not to cry. 

“Hey, it’s okay, all right? It’s done, it’s in the past.” He reached out to wrap his arm around Loki’s shoulders, trying to be comforting. 

“For you, maybe.” Loki muttered, pushing the arm away and launching himself up and to his feet to begin pacing around. “When I go back, I hope I get to keep all these memories. I’ll confront my mother-- in my time she still lives. And I will tell Odin, my father, that the dark elves yet live, and we can hunt them down and stop them before they kill her, and I won’t do… whatever it is I am supposed to. I won’t become whatever I was that made you fear me.” 

That gave Steve pause. 

Did he fear Loki? Mistrusted him plenty, for sure, had a healthy respect for his abilities and strength, but he was trying to think of the last time he actually feared him. Maybe back at the beginning of all of this, when he walked in and found him on his couch, drinking. He’d thought maybe he’d come to kill him, but that had quickly gone away. 

Steve didn’t know what to say to that realization, and was spared it by the return of Bucky, Thor, and Tony. 

“Alright, short stack, I think we’ve got it figured out.” Tony announced, and Steve saw him clearing the video of before from his tablet. 

“So the metal my arm is made of, vibranium, it takes power aimed at it, and bounces it back amplified. But the metal that Thor’s hammer is made out of, it sucks power in like a sponge, and Thor knows how to safely discharge it.” 

Steve frowned, considering the implications. 

“You’re going to use the hammer on Loki?” He asked, and Thor tipped his head a little in acknowledgement. 

“Gently,” he added, obviously a little amused by Steve’s defensiveness. “Mjolnir has never taken Loki’s power before, and I do not expect that it will begin to now. We tested on the stone itself, though, and it seems it can siphon the power from it. And so…” 

“And so the hammer’s going to suck all the time juice out of Loki, and if that doesn’t put him right, Thor can zap him with it.” 

Loki clasped his hands in front of himself, then nodded. 

“Do it.” He decided, and Steve wanted to argue, but the plan seemed to have some logic to it, and it wasn’t like he had anything else to offer. 

Thor took the hammer from his belt and held it out. 

Loki reached out, closing the distance, and laid his hand on it. 

“What do I--” he started to ask, and then his eyes rolled back in his head, and a green light arced from his head to his hand and into the metal below. 

Thor’s eyes glowed with restrained lightning, and Loki’s legs folded, letting him drop like a sack of potatoes. Steve was right there to catch him, though, and he helped him to the ground, making sure he didn’t his anything on his way down. 

The power stopped as soon as it had started, and Thor shook his head, replacing the hammer by his side. 

“That ought to be that,” He announced. “I could feel his years returning to him. But if you will excuse me, I would rather not be here when he wakes. I don’t imagine he’s going to be too pleased with any of us-- most especially me.” Thor looked around, but no one objected. 

Steve considered it, but in all honesty, he figured Loki might be better off without Thor hovering while he recovered from this one. 

“Yeah, I’ll walk you out.” Tony said instead, and Steve nodded. 

“Thanks, Thor. For everything.” He wasn’t sure he really meant it, but Thor didn’t seem to notice, or mind. He raised his hand in farewell, and headed outside with Tony in the lead. 

“Well.” Bucky said. “That was one helluva show. Bet no one saw that coming.”

Steve looked down at Loki’s unconscious face, and wondered if his life would have been easier if he had-- if the small version of him had actually been able to go back with the knowledge, and make the changes he wanted to, how much differently that might have turned out. 

How much different it might be to know him now, the type of people they’d be…

“Nope.” Steve answered. “I did not see that coming.”


	18. Panic! At the Disco

Loki slept for two days, and it was an oddly tense two days at that. 

They did some tests and readings on Bucky’s arm, and judged it 100% time stone power free, and thus safe to return to the tower in the city. 

So they loaded an unconscious Loki onto the quinjet and took him back like that, prompting about a hundred questions from Nat, Clint, Bruce, and Pepper when they landed. 

Steve also wouldn’t let them put him back in the bed in the cell. He could only imagine what the guy would think, coming to all alone and locked in. Besides, he pointed out, Loki could get out at any time, and locking him up would just give him reason to leave instead of sticking around to answer questions. 

And so, ultimately, Loki had been given a guest room, just down the hall from the ones Steve and Bucky were staying in. 

Steve found out he’d woken thanks to an alert from JARVIS, just a calm little chime before his polite voice told him that Loki had opened his eyes. 

Moments later, a much less voice gave him a secondary alert: 

“Mister Loki appears to be in a state of acute distress.” 

Steve had been planning to give him a bit before he went over to check on him, but that had him up and out of his chair and out the door in moments. 

He opened Loki’s door to find him huddled on the side of the bed, one arm still up on it, clutching at his chest and heaving in shallow gulps of air that didn’t seem to be doing him much good. His eyes were wild, and his head snapped around to track Steve, even as he tried to back away from him and ended up upsetting the lamp on the bedside table. 

Steve winced as it fell on Loki, bouncing off his shoulder to roll on the floor behind him. 

“Hey, Loki, it’s okay, try and calm down, alright?” He said, immediately holding his hands up to show he wasn’t armed and meant no harm. 

He took a couple of steps closer, and Loki started scrabbling backwards at the table behind him, like he was reaching for his own weapons, though Steve knew none were there. 

“Okay, hey, look, it’s alright. You’re safe here-- we’re back at the tower, you remember? In New York? You had an accident with the time stone. We brought you back once Thor fixed things.” 

At Thor’s name, Loki turned his head toward the door and managed to get his back up against the far wall, gripping onto the fallen lamp as if it was the only defense he had, which, Steve knew from experience, was absolutely not true. 

And, against this kind of blind, senseless panic, he knew the best defense was just getting air in him. 

“JARVIS, can you amplify my heart beat and breaths and play it back real time?” Steve asked quickly, carefully kneeling on the floor, then sitting to put himself on Loki’s level. 

“Of course. Playback started.” 

Immediately, Steve heard what he’d asked for, and made a point of breathing in deep and slow, holding the breath in for a five count, and then letting it out. He repeated that several times, and watched as Loki started emulating the pattern, slowly relaxing his hold on the lamp, and finally going limp. 

“Is Thor still here?” He finally asked, his chin nearly resting on his chest. 

“No,” Steve said, not sure whether or not he should regret that that was the answer. “He needed to get back to Asgard.”

Loki nodded, looking lethargic. But, Steve reasoned, he was out of it, and had just woken up into a panic attack. 

“Did it work? Getting the power out of the arm?” 

“It worked.” Steve assured him. “What do you remember after that?” 

Loki huffed. 

“I remember no one believing me, and I remember being lied to.”    
He looked up, finally, and his eyes were hard.    
“I suspect you learned a good deal about me, or believe you did.” 

Steve could sense him trying to pull the tattered remains of his emotional walls back up around him. 

“I learned that, once again, you were willing to put yourself in danger to help me and Bucky.” Steve answered, hoping that was the right response. 

Loki looked away. 

“What else have you lied to me about?” He asked quietly. 

“I didn’t lie to you. I didn’t even know which parts of what Thor told you were lies, and I’m real sorry it went down like that. I had no idea what the plan was, and no option other than to let it play out.” 

Loki snorted. 

“Well. You have what you wanted now, I assume. Stark has doubtless had enough time to begin to analyse the stone, and will shortly have figured enough out of how it works to enable you to go and rewrite Barnes’s history. Your friend’s prosthesis is no longer in danger of causing problems.”    
He sat the lamp back on the floor and carefully, gingerly, got to his feet. 

“Will you stop me from leaving?” He asked, watching as Steve stood as well, and Steve realized he was standing between Loki and the door. 

“No.” He said simply. “You can go if you really want. But I think you should stay. You just had a panic attack, you’re obviously still recovering from all that… you should rest and have some food, and maybe tomorrow, you can help us figure out next steps with the time stone.”

He knew immediately that he’d misstepped. Loki’s eyes flashed. 

“Ah, so I am welcome to stay so long as you think I may be useful yet, is that it?” He snapped. 

Steve shook his head.    
“No, you’re welcome to stay even if you don’t say another word about the stone. I just figured… Look, you had your own reasons for wanting to use it, when you were younger. Maybe we can still help one another.” 

Loki laughed, quiet and hollow and mirthless. 

“We would destroy our entire world if we tried.” He said simply. “And I would be to blame-- and you would of course finally have to do the heroic thing, and put an end to my evil once and for all. That is how these stories always go, is it not?” 

Loki wrapped his arms around himself, and, even when he’d been mentally a child, Steve hadn’t seen Loki look so small. 

“Loki, listen-- you’re recovering, like I said. You’ve had a rough few days, and you’ve been asleep for two of them. Which tells me your body needs time to heal, and your mind will need time to catch up. I want you to know you aren’t locked in here, and if you really want to leave, no one is gonna stop you. But if you want to talk, I’m just two doors down, alright?” 

Loki stared at him, apparently uncomprehending, and Steve shrugged. 

“Alright, well. If you get hungry, just ask JARVIS for something to eat.” 

“And trust the food provided by the machine who tried to kill me, the first night I was here?” Loki’s voice had an edge of hysteria in it again, and Steve sighed. 

“WHat do you want, Loki? What would put you at ease?”

Loki pondered for a moment. 

“Take me somewhere that isn’t here, where your common folk are fed. Only you.” 

Steve hesitated.    
Not because he was worried about them being recognized, or because he thought Loki was about to wreak havoc on New York-- again-- but because Loki was clearly in a delicate, vulnerable place, and New York was big and bustling, and overwhelming even on the best of days. 

But, if this was what Loki thought he needed… 

“Alright, well, we better get you the right clothes for it. Come on.” He turned his back to Loki and headed back to his own room, not waiting to see if he was being followed by the paranoid murderous alien god or not. 

Honestly, when had this become his life?


	19. Broken  Hearts

All kinds of deep conversations happen at diners. Steve couldn’ even begin to count how many times he’d seen people crying into their coffee and eggs at 2 am, in the cheapest place in town that was open twenty four hours. 

It wasn’t even late now; they’d left the tower just around the time the dinner rush started tapering off, and had made it to the diner while there was a relative lull going on. Or as much of a lull as a New York City diner ever experienced. 

Which was good, Steve thought. Loki was still jumpy and still on high alert. 

He made a mental note to make sure that whatever Loki got to drink, it was decaf. 

They got settled into a small booth around the side-- far from the entrance and within sight of the door to the kitchen, through which Steve imagined there was probably a back door. That would be their out in case of trouble, he reasoned. That, or the huge plate glass windows they were seated next to. 

He winced, hating that this was how his mind worked, ever since the serum. He couldn’t even order hashbrowns before he was thinking of escape routes.

Loki hadn’t even lifted his menu, Steve realized, when he focused on the laminated cardstock in front of him. Instead, he was staring at Steve, watching… observing. Steve felt himself flushing, and hoped Loki didn’t realize where his thoughts were-- the last thing he needed was to look as on edge and paranoid as Loki felt. 

“What is it?” Steve asked, finally, unable to stand the weirdly tense silence. 

“Hmm. You were… kind to me, when my mind was…” Loki flapped his hand, dismissing the need for words. Steve appreciated it. That would be hard to explain away if someone overheard.

“Yeah, well… no reason not to be.” Steve shrugged, uncomfortable. 

“I was… a good deal less kind, when you were similarly… not yourself.” Loki said, as if he were leading Steve to something. Trying to get him to say something about it, maybe. 

“That was a different situation. I could have been dangerous, and you needed to get information from me. I wasn’t happy about it at the time, but. Y’know, we were both just trying to help. In our own ways.” 

Loki huffed out something that would have been a laugh, if there was any sound to it.   
“I was also ‘trying to help in my own way’ when I gave directions to the dark elf beast that murdered my mother. Based on my personal history, I should have realized that my helping never ends well.” 

Steve felt his mouth go dry and remembered how upset little Loki had been at the prospect of his mom’s death. How he was more than willing to use the time stone, go back, and save her. 

Steve remembered, too, how lost he was when his own mom had passed. He wished he could have had someone to fight, some way to get revenge, but illness wasn’t something you could punch. Especially not when you were a 90 pound asthmatic. It had been years since then, more than it felt like to him, even, and yet he still got that twinge of panic-pain when he thought about her. 

But Loki… he could only imagine how awful it must be, waking up and thinking she was fine, then being told she was dead, then being told you murdered her, then being told you hadn’t, and then coming to yourself and remembering your own role in her death. 

He thought if he’d gone through all that, he might have panic attacks too. 

Before he could respond, though, the waiter stopped at their table for drink orders. 

“Water and orange juice, please.” Steve requested on auto pilot, mind still trying to figure out what to say to Loki. 

“Whatever ale you recommend.” Loki said, and Steve laughed, though he knew it was a little strained. 

“Oh, uh, sorry,” He told the waiter. “Diners like this don’t have liquor licences here, uh.. They can’t sell any alcohol.” 

Loki frowned. 

“Apologies. Then I will also have water and orange juice.” 

“No worries, happens more often than you’d think.” The waiter gave Loki a little wink, then nodded. “You ready for food orders, or need another couple minutes?” 

“Oh, not yet, sorry.” Steve told him quickly, and he bobbed his head agreeably and ran off to get the drinks. 

“Look, Loki--” Steve began. But Loki raised his hand to silence him. 

“I am not seeking your pity, nor your counsel. We cannot change the past. And allow me to repeat that:  _ we cannot change the past. _ There is no future in which my mother still lives, nor one in which Barnes was not made into the man he is now. If you undo a knot in a chain, the entire tapestry may unravel. And we cannot take that risk. Imagine, if you will-- if I had directed the beast to my father’s actual location instead of where I assumed he would be-- where my mother was-- and my father had been killed instead? Thor would have gone mad trying to avenge him. For the good of all worlds, and the peace between them, my mother would have had to lock him up, or banish him. He would not have come to Midgard, nor fought the elves, nor saved you from their invasion. You would now be under Svartalfar rule. And that is only one such small change.” 

Loki steepled his hands together. 

“I would make that change, just the same, though.” He said quietly. 

Steve swallowed.    
“But you just said--”

“To me, it would be worth it. The loss of who knows how many Asgardian lives, Midgardian freedoms… to have Frigga back, I would gladly make those sacrifices. I am selfish, though, and you are not. And that is why I wanted you to know.” 

It didn’t actually make any sense at all, but Steve didn’t say that. 

Loki was asking him not to let him get his hands on the time stone. He understood that much. He was also asking him to keep Bucky from using it. 

And he was counting on him to be the moral anchor for all three of them. 

But Steve didn’t think that was necessary at all. 

“If you were really as selfish as all that, you wouldn’t have told me any of this.” He argued. “You’re just looking for a scapegoat for if you decide to do what you know is wrong-- so if you do use it and unravel everything, you can say  _ I told you not to let me _ .” Steve folded his arms. “That’s not how it works. You’re responsible for your actions, not me, and I don’t have to be the one to stop you. You can do that all on your own.” 

The waiter came back with the drinks, and Steve looked down at his menu, hurriedly rattling off the name of the first breakfast meal that he saw. 

Loki shook his head, when it came time for him to place his order, but Steve wasn’t having any of it.    
“He’ll have the french toast, eggs, and fruit.” He didn’t know why, but he was betting he could appeal to Loki’s sweet tooth. Maybe it was some kind of hangover from having spent a day thinking of him as a kid. Maybe it was just comfort food for when someone was obviously hurting-- and it anybody was, it was Loki. 

The waiter went to put in their orders, and Steve took a big swallow of his water. 

“You are right.” Loki said, at length. “I alone am accountable for my actions. All of them. But there is something to be said for… I know how much it hurts, having made the choice I did. Bearing the guilt I do. The other option, the other deaths, that is all… I can imagine. But I have not felt it. And not feeling the way I do now, it is… appealing.” 

“Sure.” Steve agreed easily. “Sometimes, punching someone is appealing. Or stealing something. Doesn’t mean you do it. You haven’t stolen the time stone, even though I’m sure there’s times you could have. And you and I both know what’s stopping you. It’s the same thing that makes you help people, sometimes. Even if you try and cover it up, or if we pretend not to notice. You helped get a heavy branch off a kid in a park, after it broke when she was climbing it. You tore the door off a car that had been in a wreck to make sure the driver was alright. So don’t pretend you don’t have decency, and stop pretending you are too evil to grieve, or whatever the justification there is. You can regret, you can be sad-- and you can do it without hurting anyone else.” 

The waiter came to drop off their plates and then, as had no doubt happened so many times before, and would happen many more times after, a man shaped being sat at a diner booth and cried into his eggs. 

Steve didn’t say anything else. He just bumped his feet to Loki’s under the table as a silent reminder that he wasn’t alone. 

Sometimes, that was all you could do.


	20. Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore...

There had been an invasion-- Loki knew this much, though he didn’t know fully who the men were. 

All he knew was that they were there for the stone. He heard them say so, that that was the objective, and any deaths they caused on the way to it were permissible under their orders. 

Loki could think of at least one death he did not find ‘permissible’. 

And so he helped. He fought alongside the Avengers against a common foe, and it felt… surprisingly good, in the few moments he took between engagements. 

And then he saw it-- grasped in the gloved hands of a metal mask wearing man in a cape, the time stone had been wrested free of Barnes’ no doubt much weaker human hand. 

Loki didn’t take the time to think; he launched himself forward and grabbed at it, surprised to encounter another body as they both closed their hands around the stone, and just as the surprised invader tried to use it. 

The resultant jarring trip landed Loki and the Captain in snow, on their own… but with the stone laying between them, sparkling innocently in the fading light. 

“Where are we?” Rogers asked, already shivering in his pajamas.

“I think it is a matter of when-- the Time Stone does not move from place to place but time to time, so I would suspect we are precisely where we were…. But a very long time ago.” 

Loki looked around them; it was empty wilderness, cold and barren and devoid of signs of life. 

“Here--” Loki summoned one of his warm coats from the personal holding he had, and passed it to the Captain. 

Rogers donned it gratefully, then looked back at Loki expectantly.    
“I don’t need one,” He said, dismissing the notion but not explaining why. 

Rogers looked… perplexed, but did not press the issue. There were, of course, so many differences between them, perhaps this did not seem particularly shocking or surprising. 

Loki lifted the stone. 

“It is drained, completely empty of power.” He watched as Rogers’ face paled at the news. 

“Does that mean-- we’re stuck here? We c-can’t get back?” Rogers’s teeth chattered, though Loki could tell he was trying not to let them. 

“No. Only that we cannot get back right away. We are stuck here for however long it takes to recharge.” 

The Captain looked down at the shield on his arm. 

“This is made from the same stuff as Buck’s arm-- maybe it can help?” 

“Once it has a bit in it, yes. But as of this moment-- multiplying zero still makes zero. In the meantime, I would suggest we find shelter and get you at least somewhat warmed up.” 

Though the jacket did seem to help, and, as they began walking, the movement seemed to warm him a bit also. 

There were trees aplenty, and, as a result, places where the snow shifted beneath them from the build up of leaves and pine needles and other bits of forest leavings. Loki stopped them with a sigh. 

“We do not seem to be having any luck in the form of preexisting structures, so perhaps we should make one of our own.” 

Rogers looked around and heaved a sigh. 

“Yeah, you’re right. Probably also not such a good idea to get too far away from where we landed, either. Last thing we need is to finally get the stone working again, but end up in the wall of someone’s apartment or something.”

An incredibly good point, and one that Loki was annoyed he hadn’t thought of, though he didn’t say as much. He merely inclined his head to acknowledge it, and moved on. 

“I can fell a few trees, perhaps we may lean them against others and form something of a structure.” 

Rogers looked surprised. 

“When you say you can fell some trees…” He began, then trailed off, and Loki grabbed the nearest one to them and shoved. The roots fought back but the trunk gave way, and the tree fell to the ground with a crash. 

Rogers’s face was frozen in an expression of surprise-- or horror.

“I can fell some trees.” Loki repeated calmly, heart beating and hoping that the Captain would see that this was useful, and not something he should fear Loki for. “I will need help lifting them and positioning them, though.” 

“I can’t say I’ve tried it-- knocking down trees. But I should be at least some help. Still-- you’re much stronger than I thought.” 

“Stronger than I look, you mean.” Loki returned, tackling the next tree. It fell with another crash and he saw the Captain jump from the corner of his eye. 

“Now, that’s not what I said. But… yeah. I suppose that’s what I meant, too, a little. Sorry?” 

“It is alright.” Loki brushed it off, along with his sap coated hands. He turned to survey the area. “Even on Asgard, I am more lean muscled than most; my strength is less than Thor’s, but I can hold my own when needs be. There.” He pointed to a tree that seemed older-- or at least, more stoutly built than most of the others around them.

“That should hold these, yeah.” Rogers followed his line of sight. “Let’s start with this one?” He gestured at the most recently fallen, and Loki nodded. 

Conversation trailed off as they worked, and as the last of the light faded, they had a reasonable shelter. Not air tight by any means-- and that could prove a problem later, but enough at least to preserve a fire. 

Rogers was shivering and chattering again, and even Loki felt a bit of a chill by the time they had finished the construction. 

“Wait here just a moment.” Loki instructed, then made quick work of digging out the snow and breaking down to the partially frozen, partially decomposed leaves and pine needles. 

He made a small dam of snow at the mouth of their structure, and a small clearing so that their bedding would not catch aflame, then broke several small branches off of the trees that formed their walls, and lit them aflame with a bit of magic. 

“There.” He said, gesturing. “Stay with the fire, feed it kindling as it needs, I will go get larger branches to keep it going for the night, and be back as soon as I may.”

Rogers looked doubtful.    
“Are you sure it’s a good idea to separate?” He asked. 

“I shan’t go far,” Loki promised, almost teasing. 

“Good.” The Captain returned. “I’m lost enough as it is without losing you, too.”

And, suddenly, Loki realized how true that was. Rogers had no way back without him, and, it seemed, little enough experience living off of the land.    
Loki nodded.

“I won’t be long.”


	21. I Don't Feel So Well...

Loki had done everything he could to get them prepared for the night. He’d built a good sized fire and prepared it in such a way that it ought to continue to burn. He had finally summoned his lighter coat for himself, and had laid his cape out for the both of them to sleep on top of, to put that much more between their bodies and the cold ground. 

And yet he woke to the sounds of Rogers moving around, an almost frantic shuffling that involved him toppling some of the logs over in his efforts to add one to the fire. 

“S-s-sorry t’wake you.” His speech was stilted by the chattering of his teeth, and slightly slurred. 

“That’s quite alright.” Loki said smoothly. “Do you want some help with that?” 

“Nah, I gotit.” He sounded like he was speaking under his breath, he was concentrating so hard, and as Loki watched, he realized that Rogers’s fingers had gone stiff from the cold, and looked bright red-- not frost bitten yet, but not far off. 

The log skittered out of Rogers’s hands and into the fire at an odd angle, nearly putting it out. 

Loki got up and made quick work of rearranging it, breathing some life back into it with a little magic. 

“Here, come here.” He instructed, and beckoned Rogers to sit beside him. 

Once he had, Loki pulled up the cloak to wrap it around Rogers’s shoulders, and took his hands between his own. 

“You’re getting cold sick.” He said quietly. “Your body is too cold to warm up on its own.” 

“Hy-hypothermia.” The Captain said, as if the word made more sense to him. 

Loki raised a shoulder, not arguing. 

“We need to warm you up before the illness advances.” 

“I hate the cold.” Rogers bit out with a passion, and Loki chuckled softly. 

“As do I, though I am sure for different reasons. Now-- I wish that I could put just you and the fire into a shield, but I worry the smoke would suffocate you. So we will have to do the next best thing, and that is get you as close to surrounded by fire as possible. With that in mind, I am going to build two more fires, to either side behind you. I’ll need you to stay where you are, alright?”

Rogers looked around, his movements slow and his eyes dull. 

“If you do that, there’s not going to be any room for you.” He protested, though the words lacked his usual fire. 

“I will stay outside. Just beyond the mouth of the structure. I will be fine, trust me.”    
He wondered, distantly, if Rogers would hate him if he knew the truth of him-- of the ice that pumped through his veins, beneath this false skin. 

But that was not a concern for now. 

“Here we are--” He said, lighting the first pile of kindling and putting up a small warding shield on the trees closest to it, to keep them from catching fire. “I’ll let that grow a bit before I add to it.” He moved to the other side, and the captain shuffled around to watch him work. 

“How come you aren’t cold?” He demanded, speaking in that thick, slow voice that had taken up residence in his mouth. 

“I am a little chilly.” Loki admitted. “But I am less susceptible to it than most. Truly, I promise you, I will be fine.” 

Rogers shook his head.

“Thor got cold. We-- there w’s a mission…” He trailed off, obviously losing sight of the memory he’d meant to recount, and Loki found himself grateful for that small favor. 

“Thor and I are… not the same.” He said delicately. “You know I am adopted. My people are from a place of extreme cold. It does not bother me.” 

“Heh.” Rogers let out a small chuckle. “Izzat-- d’you watch Disney, Loki?” 

Loki tilted his head.    
“I haven’t the foggiest what that is.” He said flatly, then turned his eyes downwards to focus on the fire.

“You do!” The Captain crowed, as if this was a horribly amusing, potentially embarrassing revelation for Loki.

“I really don’t.” Loki told him, shaking his head, and added a few smaller branches to the second, then third fires. “Does that feel any warmer?”

“Funny how some distance... makes everything seem small…” Rogers was mumbling, and Loki realized he was singing as he was drifting off. 

That wasn’t a good sign. 

“What was that?” He asked, snapping the words out with a tension born of concern. 

“And the fears that once controlled me, can’t get to me at allllllll!” Rogers said, eyes opening again and a dopey grin forming on his face. 

“Your singing voice is appalling.” Loki told him flatly, hoping that offending him would force him to be more present. 

“‘S not my range.” The Captain said, sounding smug. 

“What even is it?” Loki asked. 

“Frozen. You r’lly don’t know?” This, it seemed, caused the sort of impassioned offense that Loki’s earlier insult had been meant to. 

“I really do not.” Loki asserted, and formed a shield wall-- half a bubble, to catch the heat of the back fires and direct it towards Rogers from behind. 

He saw as Rogers shivered hard once more, then stilled, the warmth allowing his muscles to relax a little. 

“Disney is an… an animation studio, or it was. They make all kinds of movies and such now, but… you know drawings, paintings? They made them move, put sound to ‘em. There’s one about these sisters, and the older one’s the snow queen, like in the old stories.” 

Loki was familiar with some of those old stories. 

“In the ones I know, the heroes cut off the ice queen’s head. I hope you don’t intend to do the same to me.” He made it sound light and teasing, but he watched carefully for any sign of a reaction from Rogers. 

Snow drunk as he was, he might be even more honest than he tended to be.

Instead, Rogers laughed. 

“Nah, that’s not what happens. Anyway I think the old evil ice queen’s whole thing was not having a heart, or her heart was frozen’r something? Your heart’s a puddle of melty goo.” Rogers looked out of it, but there was some color returning to his lips and cheeks, so Loki thought they were headed in the right direction. 

“My heart is goo, you say? Hardly sounds particularly noble.”

“Nothing noble about caring about people. Just normal. Decent.” Rogers gestured, then, seemingly realizing that his hands were warmer closer to the fire, he held them up. 

“Careful now,” Loki cautioned. “We wouldn’t want you to go from freezing to burned.” 

This, apparently, was very funny, and the Captain laughed about it for a minute or so. 

Loki sighed. 

Sunrise was an hour or more away yet, but he suspected neither of them would get more sleep until the sun took away at least a little of the cold’s edge. 

“Come, you should tell me the story of this frozen, if the evil ice queen does not lose. I think I should like to hear it.”    
And keeping Rogers talking would help Loki to monitor the state of him. 

It was going to be a long talk til sunrise. Loki shivered, his back already growing stiff from his exposure to the elements.    
But better that than Rogers being dead. 


	22. Do these tacos taste funny to you?

As the day dawned and they considered their options, Loki sent tentative tendrils of power towards the stone. 

It was recovering-- that much was clear, but it wasn’t anywhere close to being usable. 

“This will take several days.” He announced shortly. 

Rogers looked up from the fire, frowning. He seemed to have recovered some of his lost body heat, and nearly all of his wandering wits.

“Not much choice, is there? So what should we do?” 

Loki pondered. 

“We have a few priorities. The first should be sustenance, I think. Food-- preferably meat, if we can manage to trap anything. Then, shelter. What we made in a few hours yesterday was a start, but it is nowhere near enough to keep you alive, and my powers are low from keeping the heat around you. 

Rogers looked startled.

“Wait-- what did you do?” 

Loki cocked his head, then huffed a little laugh, feeling sheepish. He’d thought it would be obvious, but apparently Rogers had been too out of his mind to realize. 

“It’s no matter. I kept the heat close, that’s all. Without food and rest, I will not be able to do it again, and so we should make an effort to secure both food and a place that will support us for the next few days.” 

Rogers nodded.    
“What’s the best way to do that?” 

Loki thought back to hunts and adventures, and adjusted for his current state-- tired, magically weak, and Rogers, human, though extraordinary for one. 

“A den.” He decided. “We dig down before we build up, and that will be easier if we can find an area with good snow drift.” He glanced at Rogers’s hands, remembering how stiff and red they’d been the night prior. 

“Perhaps I should take the lead on that. Do you know anything about tracking or trapping?”

Rogers shook his head apologetically.   
“The woods isn’t really my forte-- even back in the war, we just carried rations with us.” 

Loki sighed. 

“Alright. Shelter first, then. It will, I think, be the most pressing of our needs. And maybe we can build upon what we already have, rather than starting anew.” 

This was less than ideal, of course, but they’d make it through. As long as they could keep Rogers warm enough, even if they found no food, they would last three days. This would all be fine. 

Loki’s first act was to find two trees near enough to one another that they could lay the trees they felled between them, stacking them almost like weaving, to form a wall, and wedging more trees in at an angle, to form a triangular shape. It was, again, not wind proof, but he hoped to get it closer to that before night fall. 

Once the walls were tall enough to allow them to walk inside while bent over, they switched to installing something of a roof-- simply more trees laid across. 

“All these trees we’re tearing down-- it’s not going to affect the timeline, will it?” Rogers asked, when they’d nearly finished with their labour, as it grew to early afternoon. 

Loki shrugged.

“It may have some effect, though who knows what… and it probably doesn’t do to dwell on it. We have little enough choice.” 

Loki showed the Captain how to scrape off the snow and find the wet leaves and pine needles beneath.    
“This is to fill the gaps between the logs. Can you work on this, while I search for food? Take breaks and warm your hands by the fire when they grow uncomfortable.”

“Okay. Stay close though-- within hearing range.”

“Of course.” Loki wasn’t sure whether the Captain was more concerned for himself or for Loki, but given what he knew of them man, he thought it was likely the latter. 

Sweet fool. 

Loki wished he’d taken the time earlier to fashion and set traps, but he’d chosen to prioritize otherwise, and so that left him likely needing to use what was left of his power for the day on food. 

He managed to use his Jotun eyes to find a rabbit’s burrow, and uncovered three fat rabbits for dinner. Satisfied they would have something, he began next to forage, finding a few mushrooms he was familiar with on tree trunks, low to the ground. 

He wished he had a pot; a stew would be immensely satisfying given the temperatures, and being able to melt snow and drink it warm would warm them very effectively, but he was making do with what they had, and so spits over the fire would have to do. 

He was careful not to cook the meat too long, unwilling to lose the animal’s fat to the flames, and passed two of them to Rogers to sup on. 

“Is that gonna be enough for you?” The Captain asked, nodding towards Loki’s own meal.

“I found a few mushrooms, I’ll round it out with that and it will be plenty.” Loki assured him, opening the small satchel he’d made out of the hem of his cape, tied up and around itself. 

The mushrooms, he had to admit, didn’t sound as appealing as the meat, but they would help him to feel more full. And it seemed to satisfy Rogers, who began tucking into his food with a voracity that Loki hadn’t expected. He wondered if his body, superior to the rest of his species, made superior demands of him as well.    
He was glad, suddenly, that he’d chosen to divide up the food that way. And with any luck the meat would help him feel warmer overnight. 

They finished their supper and settled into their new lodgings, watching as the sun dropped behind the trees and slowly all light faded but that of the fire. Loki kept that built high enough to warm the space, and was gratified to find the set up holding heat much better than last night’s had. 

He was just beginning to settle in when the first of the cramps hit him. 

At first he thought little of the discomfort, but as it grew, he found himself clutching at his middle and wiping sweat from his brow. 

“Are you… Loki? What’s wrong?” The Captain moved closer, clearly alarmed, and Loki waved him off. 

“Perhaps the meat was undercooked.” He said, feeling slightly miserable about it. 

“If that was the case, I should be feeling it too. What about the mushrooms? You know which ones are safe, right?” 

Loki groaned.   
“I thought I did-- there must be some differences to Asgardian ones.”

Well, that would explain his current state. 

“I should-- ah, go purge them.” Loki began to crawl towards the exit, and Rogers moved to follow. Loki stopped him. 

“I will not freeze to death in my efforts-- you might. And, if you don’t mind… I’d rather you not see me like this.” 

Rogers did not appear impressed.

“What happens if you pass out, or get lost, or if it gets worse and you can’t make it back?”

“Then you come look for me in the morning. I mean it, Rogers-- stay with the fire.” 

The Captain glanced away, his lips going thin. 

“I told you to call me Steve.” he said, and Loki sighed, glad that he was giving ground to Loki’s argument in favor of complaining about what he was called. 

“Steve, then. Let me handle this myself. I’ll return as soon as I feel up to it.” 

Rogers pushed a hand through his hair distractedly. 

“Alright, but I’m not waiting til morning. If you’re not back by the time this log burns down, I’m coming looking for you.” 

Loki glanced at the fire. That didn’t give him long, and if he had any hope of retaining his dignity-- his stomach cramped again, and made a sound like a restless beast. 

“Fine.” he said quickly. “I will walk in a straight line from the door into the woods. But if it comes to it, I imagine at some point you should be able to smell me.”

He wrinkled his nose and climbed out into the cold, fully prepared to use the dregs of his magic to speed the process of emptying his stomach, if he must.

He could not say he was looking forward to it.

\---

Some hours later, Loki returned to the shelter, shaking with exhaustion, and sore from the day’s exertions, and ready to simply curl up and rest, at long last. Rogers was still awake, waiting for him and staring into the flames, and though he’d wrapped himself in Loki’s cape, he was glad to see he didn’t appear to be as poorly off as he had been the night before. 

“Hey,” he greeted. “You doing okay?” 

Loki huffed. 

“Well, I feel a good deal less like dying.” Though he did not mention that it had smelled for a bit like he had done, out there.

Rogers laughed a little, sounding surprised.   
“Glad to hear it, I guess. Here.” He lifted his arm, creating an opening in the cape that Loki supposed he was meant to crawl into. 

“What?” Loki asked. 

“I figure-- it’s cold. We should share body heat. Especially if you’re feeling sick-- we can’t afford for you to get worse.” 

It was Loki’s turn to laugh, though there was panic hidden under it.    
The Captain was sweet, but a fool. 

“Do you suppose I withstand the cold better because I run warmer than you?” Loki asked archly. “I am cold-blooded, Captain. I would only steal your heat. I have none to share.” 

“Steve.” He corrected quickly, then shook his head. “I don’t care. As long as… if being warmer would help you, you should share my heat. You’re shivering.” 

And Loki realized it was true; he was exhausted, drained both physically and magically, and his sleep had been cut short the night prior with watching over Steve. 

He didn’t have the energy left to argue, and so worked his way around the fire to sit beside Steve, ducking under his own cape for warmth. 

“If I make you cold, though-- you must tell me.” Loki cautioned. 

“Alright. And if there’s anything I can do to help, you hafta tell me. Deal?” 

“I suppose it must be.” Loki found himself leaning into the heat, and did not flinch when Steve’s arm curled around his shoulder to pull him closer, though it was a close thing.


	23. What's a Whumpee Got to do to Get Some Sleep Around Here?

Loki lay still, curled up to Steve’s chest, making an effort to take even breaths. He breathed in for five seconds, held it for five, then released it, then held it, then back from the start again.

His intent had not, at first, been to feign sleep, but rather to encourage his body to let him rest. 

And then he’d realized Steve was shaking. So he’d sat up and readjusted the cape where it was draped over them both, to cover his back end, where Loki had apparently tugged the cape too far towards himself, and Steve hadn’t said anything. 

Then he pulled another log onto the fire, moving slowly and quietly and careful not to wake his bedmate.

He lay back down, burrowed his way back into the little cavern of warmth between his chest and the cape, and tried to fall asleep. 

Five in. Five hold. Five out. Five hold. Five in. Five hold. 

He could feel himself beginning to drift off, but jerked awake, his mind flashing the worry that he might grow colder in his sleep. He wouldn’t know-- he hadn’t shared a bed or bedroll with anyone overnight since discovering his origins. It was possible that, in this kind of cold, he might revert to his Jotun shape, if he rested. And then he’d injure Steve, or worse-- leech all of his hard won warmth, and kill him in his sleep. 

There was part of Loki that wanted to shoot away, get out of the cape and move to the opposite side of the shelter, just for safety. 

But… it was warm. He was the most comfortable he’d been in days. He was exhausted and still a little weak feeling from his earlier illness. 

And… this close, he could turn his head a little, and hear Steve’s heartbeat. He could time his breaths to match, and listen to make sure he drew the next one, and the next… 

Loki knew there was a chance that if he didn’t move away, he could do a great deal of damage. But if he stayed… he could apply himself to making sure he didn’t. 

And so he spent the night counting his breaths and Steve’s, listening to his heart, tracking the changes in the fire and its heat… 

He wanted the sleep; his body craved it. But he’d gone without before, and he could do it again. What he’d gone without for far longer, and what he craved far more, was the closeness and the companionship with the man beside him, even if he was sleeping, dreaming he was somewhere else, with anyone else… 

It had been some time since Loki felt like he belonged anywhere. But for the moment, it felt like he belonged exactly where he was, and he was loathe to move away. 

\---

Behind him, Steve tried not to scrunch his face up or let his eyes flutter. He could hear Loki shuffling, could almost feel his mind going a hundred miles a minute, and wondered what it was he was worried about, what he wasn’t telling Steve. 

Predators, maybe, or some invisible threat that Loki planned to take care of on his own. 

He was odd, quick to volunteer his help and slow to ask for any help in return. He didn’t want to be a burden, and didn’t seem to want to be thanked for his efforts in keeping them alive, either. He certainly didn’t seem to know how to respond to compliments. 

And he didn’t know how to sleep next to someone else. 

Not that Steve could talk; he was having a hard time his own self. He just hoped they’d be able to drift off before morning. 

And he hoped that tomorrow would be easier. They had shelter, so they wouldn’t need to build another. And maybe the stone would be ready, maybe they could go back. 

Then they wouldn’t have to sleep so close to share warmth. 

Steve tried not to acknowledge his disappointment, at that thought. It made no sense, after all.    
He was just tired.


	24. You're Not Making Any Sense

They were able to travel forward the next day. 

“I whink it’s safer that we do this over the course of several shorter jumps-- we haven’t any idea how far back we’ve gone, and the last thing we want is to overshoot our present. So… I am going to say not more than a few hundred years at a time.” Loki explained. 

Steve nodded, then spun to look around at their little shelter-- their home for the last few days. “You know, it’s funny, but I feel unreasonably attached to this little fort.” He told Loki, and Loki couldn’t help the fond smile. 

“Well, it did likely save your life. Some attachment is reasonable.”

Steve turned back to him, one brow raised.   
“I suppose that’s even more true of people, huh?” 

Loki swallowed, his mouth feeling dry and his face feeling warm.    
“I suppose it depends on the person. Ah-- shall we?” He lifted the stone and held his other hand out to Steve. 

He took it, and squeezed Loki’s hand reassuringly. Loki smiled at him, then closed his eyes and reached out with his seidhr, trying to use his will and his power to shape and control the power of the stone, to coax it into doing what he needed it to. 

The only problem was, the stone was stronger than him. Older. Much more stubborn. 

But Loki remembered Steve, at his side, and firmed his resolve. He couldn’t falter in this, could not fail. 

He felt the power of the stone moving up through his seidhr again, as it had done when he was fixing Barnes’s arm, and he could feel it more potently from the source, running through him. It felt as if it was setting his veins alight, sending electricity and fire coursing through all of him.    
  
He took a deep breath, opened his mouth, and  _ screamed _ \-- but didn’t let that stop him. Holding tight to Steve’s hand, he launched them both forward through the rift that his voice had somehow torn open.

They landed, sprawled on one another, on the floor of a forest much like the one they’d just been in. There were signs of life, though-- game trails and footpaths that cut through the snow, speaking of at least semi-frequent use. 

Loki pushed himself upright, shivering as he finally let go of Steve’s hand and tucked the stone away into his pocket. 

“Well. That was unpleasant,” He tried to say-- save that when he opened his mouth, all that came out was a croak. 

He grasped at his throat, only now registering the agony of it. 

His voice had been burned out by the stone’s power, which he supposed was good-- it had to come out somewhere, better there than his eyes. 

But Steve was looking alarmed. 

“Loki? Are you alright? You’re not-- you’re still you this time, right?”

Loki laughed, albeit soundlessly, and pointed to his throat, then shook his head.

“You can’t talk?” Steve asked, catching on blessedly fast. Faster than Thor would have, Loki was certain. He nodded.

“What-- uh, is it… is it permanent?” 

That hadn’t occurred to Loki and he tilted his head, feeling around the edges of the injury with his seidhr. He put some of his gift towards helping along the healing process, and was glad to feel some small relief to the pain. 

He shook his head no, then tapped his wrist, the way he’d seen Stark do. 

“You just need time to heal.” Steve filled in, sounding relieved. “Okay. Good. I’m-- I’m glad. Alright-- well. Should we follow this, you think? Go in search of better shelter?” 

Loki considered.    
Their garb would no doubt be outlandish to any who saw them; as it was, he still wore Asgardian clothing, and Steve was in sweatpants, a thin shirt, and Loki’s jacket. Unless they wanted to be mistaken for Gods, or burned as witches, better to avoid the people of this time. 

But that also meant they needed to be discreet insofar as building their shelter. Ripping trees in half was hardly quiet-- or subtle. 

He tilted his hand as if balancing it, then pointed to the game trail-- which ran alongside the main path, but through the bush. 

Steve frowned.   
“You want to hunt-- what, deer?” 

Loki huffed and shook his head.    
He pointed at the path, then put his hand over his eyes, then pointed at himself. 

“We can’t be seen.” Steve filled in, understanding dawning on his face. “But we should find somewhere safe to spend the night-- I assume both you and the stone need to recharge?” 

Loki nodded at this. 

“Okay, got it. So the game trail it is.” 

They followed said trail for some ways, until it led to a small river that Loki didn’t think had been there when they’d camped in the dead of winter; it must be closer to spring now. There was still snow but it was patchy and dirty looking, and the water, though sluggish, was certainly running. 

“You think it’s safe to drink?” Steve asked. 

Loki looked back towards the path, which had widened into something of a road. It turned to follow the river downstream, which meant that whatever settlement it led to was also downstream, and so were any pollutants that came of it. 

He nodded, grateful. 

Rogers used his shield to scoop up some of the water and offered it to Loki, who drank greedily, the water spilling down his front as much as getting in his mouth, but that hardly mattered. He swallowed and relished the coolness on the inside of his throat. 

Steve was openly laughing at him when he finished, and he scowled before lightly tossing the shield in his direction. Steve caught it easily, and fetched some water for himself. 

While he drank, Loki saw a deer, a brave thing, venturing down for its own drink, upstream just a short way and on the opposite bank. 

He carefully tapped Steve’s shoulder, then pointed.

“Oh, I didn’t realize there were actually deer.” Steve said, voice hushed. 

Loki nodded, then, in a flash, embedded a throwing knife in its eye. 

The deer screamed and Steve startled, but Loki was already crossing the stream to get to his quarry. 

It wasn’t dead yet-- he pulled the knife out and slit its throat, putting it out of its misery. 

“Wh-- why did you--?” Steve asked, looking queasy. 

Loki pointed, then mimed eating, then pointed again, and pointed at the fur on Steve’s coat, then pointed a third time, and pointed in the direction that the road went. 

“Wait, you want to… to sell or trade it or something?”    
Loki nodded. 

“I thought you didn’t want us to be seen, though?” 

Loki shook his head. He pointed to himself, then his eye, then the road, then held up one finger. 

“You want to see them first.” 

Loki nodded, then gestured with his hands to create a little sparkle. 

“Are you going to… bespell them?” Steve was frowning, already disapproving, and Loki sighed and shook his head. 

He wiggled his fingers again, and pointed at the two of them.

“You’re going to bespell us-- oh, so that we fit in!” 

Loki nodded. 

“Great, that’s handy!” 

Loki nodded, smug. Then he pointed at the deer, and then at Steve. 

“You want me to carry it, I take it.” Steve sounded less enthused about this. 

Loki pulled his knife free and took it to the water’s edge to rinse it off. 

That done, he removed his cape and used it to fashion a sling, then, through a series of gestures, had Steve help him hoist the deer up to hang upside down and drain out a bit. 

He didn’t want his coat covered in its blood if he could avoid it. 

He got Steve’s attention, then pointed to himself, then to the road, and then he pointed to Steve and to the deer and to the ground on which they stood. 

Steve’s brow creased, an increasingly familiar sign of his disapproval.

“If you scout ahead and get into trouble, how will I know? It’s not like you can call for help.” 

That was...a fair point, Loki supposed. He wiggled his fingers again and shot off a few tiny green sparks, then pointed into the air. 

“So I watch for those?” Steve asked, and Loki nodded.

For all that he was known for his words, and not particularly pleased to be without them, at least he was with someone intelligent enough to make it less painful than it would have been. 

“I don’t like it, but I guess it’s the easiest way. Alright. But I mean it, the very first sign of trouble…” 

Loki nodded and flapped his hand, waving off Steve’s worrying. 

He followed the path, gratified to see the smoke from cooking fires off in the distance-- further than he necessarily wanted to go alone-- but he also saw a smaller spire of smoke from nearer. 

He approached that one, cautious, and found what looked like a family at a semi permanent camp. Their structures looked made to be carried with them, but not so temporary as a normal camp. They’d set up several pieces of furniture, crafted with wood and weaving, and there was a woman cooking at a fire, which had been formed in an oven shaped of clay and built in place. 

It was not the sort of thing one made for a day or two’s stay, but rather if one meant to be there for a time, but not permanently. 

Loki located the man among all of this, and listened as they spoke. 

It was not Steve’s language, he realized with a sinking feeling. And they looked little enough like Steve. That would complicate matters; he could understand them, but neither of them would be able to communicate effectively. 

He silently made his way back. Steve was leaning against a tree, sketching on a small notebook that Loki didn’t think he’d noticed him having before, though he must have done. 

The deer’s draining had slowed to a drip, and Loki waved when Steve heard him approaching and looked up. 

“Any luck?” He asked. Loki nodded, and gestured between them, shifting both of their appearances to better match their soon-to-be hosts. 

Steve looked surprised, then sheepish. 

“Oh, native Americans. That makes sense. I wonder if anyone who looks like me has even made it here yet.” 

That would actually be a useful means of measuring time, Loki supposed, provided Steve was even passingly familiar with his history. 

She took away Steve’s illusory skin color, but left the clothing. Now at least he would seem of the time, but his skin would explain why he did not know their language. 

“So your plan is to be my wife?” Steve asked, and Loki nodded, glad he’d at least realized the reasoning behind changing into a woman. 

“That makes sense. It’ll seem less threatening too-- I assume it’s a woman?” 

Loki held up his fingers, for five people, then pointed to herself, woman, two, Steve, man, one, then he put his hand at waist height, for children, and held up two fingers. 

“A family?” Steve guessed, and Loki nodded. 

“Well alright. Let’s go meet them.” Steve stood and Loki helped him pull the deer down and get it situated over his shoulder. 

They reached the family’s camp again, and Loki gestured for Steve to wait, then walked ahead. She could understand them, and she looked the less threatening, the more familiar of the two. 

She approached the edges of the camp, openly visible. 

“Who’s there?” A woman called, and the man looked up, alarmed. 

Loki gestured in a circle around her mouth, then gripped her own neck to further illustrate. She bowed his head. 

“I don’t think she can talk.” The woman told the man. 

He nodded. “I got that. Who’s that behind you?” He lifted his voice, calling out to Loki. 

Loki looked back and pointed at Steve, then at herself, and crossed her fingers, hoping they would understand. 

“Her mate?” The woman guessed. 

“Seems so. Funny looking guy, but maybe that’s why they are on their own.” 

Loki made a gesture to draw their eyes back to her, and she pointed at Steve, then at herself, and scooped both hands forward, as if in offering. 

Then she pointed at the two of them, and then at the camp behind them, and made a gesture over her head, for a roof. 

“Can you understand me?” The man asked, and Loki nodded yes. 

Fortunately, that seemed to mean the same thing here as it did in her time. 

“Do you need somewhere to stay for the night?” 

Loki nodded yes again. 

“Call your man.” The man answered, and Loki turned, gesturing that Steve should join her. 

He closed the distance, and when he reached her, she stopped him and turned him so they could see the deer more clearly. 

“That’s a lot of meat.” The woman pointed out helpfully. “More than two people can eat.” 

Loki again made the gesture for a gift. 

“I think that’s the exchange-- they need a place to escape the cold tonight, and they will give us the deer. Yes?” The man was looking at Steve, who was looking lost. 

Loki waved to pull the man’s attention back to her. 

She pointed at Steve, then made her hand into a mouth, and opened and closed it. 

“You want me to talk?” Steve asked, and she nodded. “Oh, okay, uh, Hi, I’m Steve and this is Loki.” He said. She raised a hand; that was enough to prove the point. 

“He’s from somewhere else.” The man said, staring uneasily at Steve. Loki nodded. 

She made the offering gesture, then the gesture for shelter, then brought her hands to her face as if to eat. 

“Your deer in exchange for a night’s sleep and a meal?” The man asked, and Loki nodded, giving him a hopeful smile. 

He laughed.    
“That is a good deal, I think. Though I warn you, my children will be pests about your man’s looks.” 

Loki smiled wider at that.

“What’s he saying?” Steve asked, and Loki looked to him, trying to figure out how to explain. She made the short sign again, then pointed at him, then sketched a heart in the air. 

Steve smiled and chuckled. 

“Yeah, I’m good with kids. I’m happy to watch them, if that’s what they’re asking.” 

Loki smiled; close enough, and turned back to the man. She nodded. 

He made a welcoming gesture. 

“Come in, then. We should begin to prepare the meat, if Kanti is to have it ready for eating tonight.” 

Loki pointed at herself, then at the woman. 

Kanti smiled. “Of course you can help. What can we call you?”    
  


Loki tugged on Steve, then made the speak sign again, and pointed at herself.    
“Loki.” Steve said, catching on and pointing at her. 

“Loki.” Kanti repeated. Then she pointed at Steve, and mimicked Loki’s talking signal. 

“Steve.” He said, tapping his own chest. 

“Loki. Have Steve put the deer near the log?” The man requested, and Loki nodded. 

She gestured, and Steve obeyed easily. She took a deep breath, glad that this was working. 

She could not imagine that it would with anyone else. 

A short while later, they were all around the fire, eating the soup that Kanti had made as well as the meat from the deer that they’d provided. 

True to Machk’s promise, the children were chattering at Steve and demanding that he play with them. Meanwhile, Kanti and her sister, Hausis, were talking to Loki as if she were holding up her end of the conversation seamlessly. And she did her best, with gestures and facial expressions. 

It was easy, and nice, and watching Steve with those children made her feel… incredibly fond. 

“Don’t worry.” Machk said, breaking into her thoughts and surprising her. “I am sure you will have some of your own, soon. It is good not to have them while traveling, though. We travel very slowly, for it.” 

Kanti smacked her husband lightly with some reeds from a nearby project, and Hausis laughed. 

“It’s true. Still, we wouldn’t have it otherwise. You’ll get your own blessings, when you get where you’re going.” She promised, and Loki felt herself flushing, though she glanced back at Steve, still smiling entirely too wide, and met his eye. She turned back to their hosts and nodded. 

She certainly hoped so.


	25. I Think I'll Just Collapse Right Here, Thanks.

The time for the stone to recharge from a smaller jump was lesser, thank goodness. It meant that after a mildly cold night, spent sharing a corner of their host’s family tent, they were ready to move on in the morning-- first away from other people, and then forward in time. Their hosts insisted on feeding them first, and Loki was grateful for at least knowing where some food would come from that day, given they had no idea when they might end up. 

During breakfast Loki, keeping her silence, tried not to think about sleeping in Steve’s arms, this time with other people around, who thought them partners and saw nothing wrong with it. It was… an oddly heady feeling, and that was without doubt the best sleep she’d had in years. 

No doubt helped along by the relative comfort of not rough-shod camping in mid-winter, and the exhaustion of the traveling the day before. 

Once they were a good way away from the family, she changed back to himself and dropped the illusions on Steve’s clothing. 

“How are you doing today?” Steve asked, almost immediately. 

Loki smiled. 

“My voice feels better.” He said, and though the words came out, there was still a rough edge to them. He winced. 

“I shall try to speak sparingly.” He added. 

Steve huffed. 

“Yeah, that’s fair. Are you sure you don’t want to wait another day before jumping forward again?”

Loki shook his head.    
“I would rather move us towards modern showers, food, and heat.” He gave Steve a reassuring smile, pulled out the stone, and offered him his hand. 

“Shall we?”

Steve took his hand and squeezed it. 

“Yeah, ready if you are.”

Loki nodded and shaped his seidhr first, this time, forming a shield around his hand and the stone before reaching within it, creating a way to trap the stone’s power and separate it from his own. 

Even still, as the power woke and began to surge, hitting the shield and becoming agitated, bumping around, he knew it would not hold. 

Carefully, he opened the shield away from himself and pointed the power before them, hoping to create the opening they needed and allow them to walk through. 

The stone refused, surging backwards, washing over his hand, up his arm. He bit his lip to hold in the sounds, to keep from destroying his throat further, and he felt Steve hold tighter to his hand as the stone’s power surrounded them both. 

He could feel the stone reaching into him, tapping into his seidhr again, and he could feel it pulling power from him-- unnecessary, but at least he had enough presence of mind to shape the power, to drive them where he needed them to go. 

There was no physical step necessary this time; instead they felt like they had been ripped through something impenetrable. It felt like being thrown through brick walls, tugged through them via a line wrapped around his brain. 

The power receded, all at once, and Loki’s knees gave out and he crumpled. 

“Loki!” Steve used his grip on his hand to keep him upright, then knelt with him and gathered him close, keeping Loki’s face from meeting the ground. 

Loki’s vision swam, several copies of concerned blue eyes staring down into his face. 

“‘M alright.” Loki said, though he could feel his head pounding and his words slurred.

Steve snorted. “Clearly not. You haven’t even tried to get up.” 

Loki blinked, then turned his head. 

They were surrounded by people, both those who looked like their hosts from the night prior and those who looked like Steve. 

“Englishman, does your friend need help?” Loki heard someone ask in Steve’s tongue. Steve looked up, surprised. 

“I-- he’s just exhausted from traveling. Is there a… a hotel? Somewhere I can rent a bed?”

With what money, Loki wondered. But he didn’t interrupt, closing his eyes instead. He didn’t know where or when they were, but at least Steve seemed to speak the language and could manage himself. 

Loki took a deep breath and tried to focus on the places Steve’s hands were touching him, on the warmth of him seeping through Loki’s clothing. Narrowing his focus that much allowed him to better catalogue his ills. 

He was shaky and disoriented, his thoughts vibrating nearly as much as his body, his ears ringing and his eyes unable to focus fully when he did open them. He felt like a gong that had been rung and was now left to stop shaking on his own, hollow echoes of what came before pulsing through him. 

It felt as if the stone was laughing at him. 

He pulled the hand holding the stone in close to his chest, lest anyone else see it. 

“You have yourself a deal.” Steve was saying. Loki let him guide him to his feet, but he was unsteady on them, and nearly fell again. 

He heard a few voices cry out at that, and then felt Steve lifting him, pulling him close to his chest. 

“I’ve got you.” Steve’s voice rumbled through him, a grounding counterpoint to his empty vibrations, and Loki smiled faintly. 

He let the darkness of sleep swallow him up, though regretfully. He hoped Steve would be alright, but there was nothing he could do to be of help at present.

When he woke again, he was in a bed. Not a very comfortable one, but a bed just the same. In a room with walls. There were sounds outside-- life happening around him. But Steve wasn’t there. 

He had no other grounding points, and still felt ill, but sat up just the same. 

There were too many people around.

The thought drove through his brain like a spike, and left a wave of panic behind it. 

Who knew what effects their presence would have?

He struggled to his feet, then to the door, catching himself on the wall.    
“Steve?” He called, hating how weak he sounded, then again, “Steve!” 

He heard the sounds of things being set down, and then Steve appeared, looking worried for him but otherwise perfectly fine. 

“Hey, it’s okay. I got us a room, we’re alright.”

“Too many people, Steve, too many changes…” 

Steve shook his head. 

“It’s fine. It will be fine. This is a port town, people come in and out all the time, weird folks, from all over the place. No one will think twice about us. And you need the rest.” 

Loki shook his head, then reeled-- that had been a mistake. Even so:    
“We should go.” 

“No.” Steve firmed his voice, sounding every bit the Captain. “You should go back to bed. You can’t walk, and I am not going to carry you, and I’m certainly not letting you use the stone again until you’re solidly back on your feet.”

“But--”

“ _ No. _ ” Steve insisted. “It keeps hurting you. I hate that I can’t help, and I hate that we have to do it, but at the very least, you can take the time to take care of yourself-- or let me take care of you. I mean, reasonably speaking, we have all the time in the world, right?” 

Loki stared at him, at the little smile that played around his lips and the open concern in his eyes, alongside the stubborn slant of his jaw. 

He was beautiful. 

Loki closed his eyes. 

“We will travel again tomorrow. Find out the year, if you can.” 

“It’s 1660. We’re in New Amsterdam colony. And the next time we jump, we’ll need to be careful to avoid landing in the Revolutionary War.”    
Steve lowered his voice for the last part. 

Loki nodded. 

“Tell me how many years before it is safe, and I will find a way to get us to then.” He mumbled. 

“Alright, that’s enough of that.” Steve said, and steered him back into the room, back to the bed. He helped Loki take a drink of water. 

“I’ll wake you for supper. For now-- just rest.” 

Loki nodded, eyes still closed, and let himself drift again.


	26. If you thought the head trauma was bad...

When Loki roused again, it was not for supper, as Steve had promised, but rather late into the next day. 

He quickly checked himself for the stone, then sat up, marveling at the darkness that existed inside of a room without electric lights or magic to show the way. 

Speaking of, he lifted his hand and flicked his wrist, creating a tiny witch light to better see his way to the restroom with-- and immediately panicked. 

He could feel the power-- it was there, in his hand, and he was holding it. He banished it and tried it again. 

“Everything okay?” A voice asked, and Loki extinguished the flame, jolting with shock before recognizing it as Steve’s. 

“Steve?” He asked, nearly hyperventilating now. 

“What is it, Loki?” Steve was at his side in an instant, one hand settling between Loki’s shoulder blades. 

“I can’t see anything-- I--” Loki lifted his hand to his own face and waved it around, able to feel the air in front of him being disturbed, but not see the motion itself. 

Steve sucked in a shocked breath. 

“Okay, okay, it’s alright, let’s figure this out. Maybe it’s like your voice-- your vision was blurry and messed up yesterday, right?” 

Loki nodded, unable to find words. 

“Okay, deep breaths. I’m not gonna leave you alone, we’ll figure this out, and if you can’t heal yourself, we’ll just have to get you to someone who can, okay?” 

Loki did his best to try and relax. He needed to be calm before he tried anything like using seidhr on himself.

And then he remembered why he’d been trying to get up in the first place. 

“Steve… I need to use the restroom.” He hated this, hated feeling so vulnerable and intimately dependent. 

“Okay, sure, no problem. They’ve got outhouses here, so we’re gonna have to get you up, put some shoes back on you. Here we go, just swing your legs off the bed, I’ll get the shoes.” 

Loki let himself be coaxed into a seated position and tried not to panic or cry while Steve gently got him dressed. The concentrated effort of schooling his face at least distracted him until Steve finished with that, and stood.

“Alright. You ready to go?” 

Loki, without thinking, just shook his head no.    
“Sorry-- context. Is it day or night, are there people about, do they know you, do they expect me to speak…?” 

“It’s the middle of the night, no one should be up, and the last they saw of you, you were passing out in the street. No one will think twice of me helping you to the privy. Promise.” 

Loki exhaled shakily. 

“Alright. Only remember I cannot see-- if anyone is around, please address them. And if there is anything in my path.”

“I’ve got you.” Steve promised, and took Loki’s hands in his. “Up we get.” 

Loki had forgotten that Steve was nearly as strong as an Asgardian, but was pleasantly reminded when his legs initially refused to bear his weight, and Steve caught him against his chest. 

Loki righted himself, however, and refused to consider swooning like a maiden just to get further time with Steve’s arms around him. 

He had a feeling, right now, that all he needed do was ask-- or cry-- and it would happen on its own. And he had more pressing matters to attend to. 

Steve led him through the house, careful to tell him where they were each time they entered a new room, and to warn him of steps down into the rear yard of the house, across the yard and then--

Loki smelled the latrine before they reached it, and must have made a face, because Steve laughed a little.

“I know. But I promise, the seat itself is kept nice and clean. The ladies would revolt otherwise.” 

Loki let Steve lead him up and into the outhouse, then sensed when he faltered. 

“I think I can manage not to piss myself.” He said lightly. “This much I have done in the dark before.” 

Steve didn’t say anything, but Loki assumed he nodded before backing off, and he waited til he heard the door closing before dropping trou and seating himself like a child and relieving his poor bladder. 

Finished, he stood redressed, and opened the door. 

Steve instantly put up a hand and guided Loki down the stairs without complaint. 

“Thank you.” Loki said quietly, as they made their way back into the house. “For all of this… it is… I cannot imagine it would be so easy with anyone else.”

Steve snorted.   
“No, but then, you might’ve made it back already without me, so. Thank  _ you _ .” 

Loki shook his head. 

“I think… we should consider making all the rest of the jump in a single bound. I worry how much more I will fall apart in several small leaps, and at least if we make it back, you will have ample help to get me… sorted.” 

He meant healed, but the honest truth was, Loki wasn’t entirely sure he would survive another tango with the stone. 

Steve paused, Loki running into him as a result.

“That doesn’t seem like it’d be a good idea for you.” Steve pointed out. “Maybe we should wait til we get back to our room to discuss it.” 

Loki shrugged. 

“Okay, look, nearly there now, just through here.” Steve started moving again, and Loki followed. 

Once they were inside of the room, door closed securely, and Loki seated on the bed again, Steve heaved a sigh. 

“Okay, so explain to me-- the pros and cons here. Pro, we’d be back, you’d be able to get better help. Cons, whatever it’s doing to you, I assume it’d be bigger and worse?”

“I don’t know.” Loki answered gamely. “It’s got… I wouldn’t say a mind of its own so much as a will of its own. And I didn’t have a terrible reaction to jumping all the way back as far as we were. It’s possible it  _ wants _ a greater power expenditure, and that my meddling and attempting to control it as I’ve been doing is what’s causing these… setbacks.” 

“Okay…” Steve said slowly. “What’s the other possibility?” 

Loki pursed his lips.

“I suppose in the opposite side of the spectrum… the power razes through me, and I get burned out. It destroys my ability to use seidhr at all, and we become lost at some point in time, potentially far into the future, if I lose control of it mid jump.”

“Oh.” Steve said faintly. “So no risk, then.” His words sounded strangled as he fought to restrain himself. 

Loki heard him kneel beside the bed, and felt him take Loki’s hand in his. 

“No.” Steve said. “We take this slow. We let you heal, however long you need, and then we go a little further. We have time, right? All the time in the world, that’s what the stone means.”

“We have access to all the time in the world.” Loki corrected gently, moving one hand to close over the top of Steve’s. “You and I are getting older, a day at a time. We will already return, if everything works perfectly, as different people than who we were, mere moments after we leave.” 

“That’s fine. It would’ve happened anyway.” Steve could be stubborn when he wanted, Loki had to give him that much. 

“And what if this takes more than a day or two to heal?” Loki asked. “What if we are waiting months between jumps? What if we return to your friends and your hair has gone grey and your face creased with age?” 

Steve squeezed Loki’s hand. 

“What other option do we have? Because losing you isn’t an option.” 

Loki shook his head. 

“Let me see what I can manage, as far as healing is concerned. We will discuss and attempt to make plans from there.” 

“Okay.” Steve agreed. “But I mean it-- nothing that puts you any more at risk than you have to be.” 

Loki huffed and leveraged himself back into a reclined position, leaving his shoes on. 

He heard Steve retreat, and then heard him sit down on something that sounded suspiciously wooden. 

“Steve…” He asked slowly, “What were you sleeping on before I woke you?” 

Steve cleared his throat, and Loki stood, hands out before him, to follow the sound to its source. It wasn’t a large room, and he located the bench with ease and distaste. 

“Unacceptable.” He announced. 

Steve huffed. “There’s only the one bed, Loki, and I don’t think we’ll both fit.” 

“We both fit in a snow shelter not much larger than a coffin, Steve. I think we can manage.” 

“I guess I can’t really argue that. But don’t you need some room, for your healing?” 

“Healing is internal, Steve. Come to bed.” 

Once they had managed to settle themselves, laying on their sides and with Steve’s arms wrapped around Loki, helping to hold him on the bed, Loki closed his eyes and focused inwards. 

He almost laughed, but didn’t want to startle Steve too much. 

He was blinded. But it seemed he’d done it to himself. No doubt the migraine from before had been light sensitive, and in his stupor, he’d made himself completely not sensitive to light. 

He removed it and sighed, glad for that. 

“Will you be okay?” Steve asked, voice directly behind him and his breath stirring the small hairs on Loki’s neck. 

“I will be. I already am.” Loki answered. 

He felt Steve burrow his face into the back of Loki’s shoulder, and couldn’t help but wonder if any of this would still be there in the morning… and beyond, when they returned, would Steve still touch him, hold him, speak kindly to him… or would he create a new distance? 

His friends would be suspicious, of course. Probably none moreso than Barnes. 

Maybe it was better to end it now, get it over with before Loki could grow too comfortable, too hopeful. 

They were going back to their time the next day, Loki decided. Whether Steve liked it or not.


	27. Okay, who had natural disasters on their 2020 bingo card?

After giving thanks to their hosts-- and, Loki learned, Steve’s temporary employers, for he’d agreed to work in exchange for the room they’d used-- 

They were allowed to set off, though the hosts expressed their concerns for his health, and, especially the wife, expressed their pleasure in having Steve working. They tried to cajole another day’s stay out of them, and Steve looked to Loki, entirely ready to respond, but lOki, jealous and already aching for it, shook his head. 

“I’m afraid we’ve lingered longer than we should already; we’re expected, and running behind schedule.” 

None could argue with that, though Steve gave him a disappointed look, but he did not contradict his words. 

And so they parted ways with New Amsterdam and left the area, waiting until they were out of the developed parts and well into the woods to talk. 

“We could camp out here,” Steve opened with, obviously hopeful. 

“No, as I said, I am using too much of your life as it is, taking too much time from you. We go forward today.” 

Steve’s lips thinned into a near-frown. 

“I hate having to scrape you off the ground every time we do this.” He said, words tight. 

Loki stiffened. 

“I apologize for being such a burden.” He spat, feeling wounded. It felt like a judgement-- he ought to be better than this. The problem was, he agreed. This should not affect him so, and it felt like weakness, allowing the stone to wreck him so thoroughly. 

“Loki…” Steve said, his name sounding like a warning before a sigh came from Steve’s lips. “That’s not what I mean. You have to know that.”

Loki glanced away. 

“I know. I’m sorry.” 

He looked up to find Steve’s brow furrowed, his hands shoved into the pockets of his sweatpants.

“Look, I… appreciate, I guess, everything you’ve done. You’ve kept me alive, when you didn’t have to, you haven’t abandoned me, even though it would have been easier…”

“Steve, stop, please.” Loki was not above begging. “This grand statement, this admission you want to work up to… it’s born of reliance. It’s born of fear. I don’t want--” He bit the words off. 

He didn’t want to take advantage, and he didn’t want some sort of pity or gratitude attraction. 

He wanted Steve Rogers, heart and mind and all. Not a Steve who had decided he was in love simply because Loki meant safety and a way home. 

Loki shook his head and pulled out the stone.

“I intend to take us back to our present today.” He said quietly. “This has gone on long enough. We’ve played pretend long enough, don’t you think? Our lives await us, in our own time, our destinies will not stop just because we have stepped out of the time stream.” 

And he was certain Steve’s destiny would be far from his, or worse-- destined to be his end. They were so much the opposite of one another, Steve so good and he so wicked. This would not end the way he wanted it to. And even if Steve got what he wanted now… Loki was under no illusions. Steve would come to resent him the moment his head was on straight and the rest of their lives was before him. 

“What? Loki, I thought-- you said that could destroy you!” Steve protested, his hands coming up as he stepped forward, hands closing around Loki’s hand that was holding the stone. 

“Better than letting me destroy you.” Loki responded, just as earnest. 

He wrapped his other hand around Steve’s wrist, and gave him no more time to argue. 

“Hold on!” He warned, before letting the stone go-- opening himself to it as he had never done before. 

He focused his thoughts on when they’d come from, the attack on the tower, the confusion of that night, Steve’s body crashing into his as the stone was activated. He held on to Steve with all the strength he had, and felt himself screaming-- singing-- falling--

And when they landed, the ground shook, upsetting the world around them. He could hear tires screeching to a halt and people shouting, could hear sirens and loud music, the sounds of a city, interrupted and shocked by that fact. 

They were back, or very nearly. 

All around them, the electrical grid shuddered and began to fail, New York City’s famous lights shutting down one block at a time. 

“Fuck Twenty Twenty.” He heard someone grumbling as they flicked on the lights on their cell phone.

Close enough, Loki decided. He felt the ground shaking around him and closed his eyes for a moment, before realizing he was still standing, still holding onto Steve. 

He opened his eyes and met Steve’s, taking in the shock on his face. 

Loki dropped his hands. 

“It seems I was right: it was easier to do a larger jump.” 

“ _ Easier- _ \- Loki, Manhattan is all but blacked out!” 

Loki flinched.

Of course-- he had put himself above all those affected by his decision. It was exactly what he’d warned Steve would happen if he gained control of the stone, after all. 

Loki held the fisted hand out, and when Steve didn’t respond in kind, he simply dropped the stone at his feet. 

“I am sorry.” He said, looking up again, and into Steve’s eyes. “I didn’t know it would happen. I didn’t mean any harm.” 

That summarized all of it, he supposed. The whole adventure, Steve’s feelings, his own, the power outage, their return. 

All at once, he’d had enough of feeling like a failure. Of feeling weak and destructive in turns, fated to do nothing but be a burden or cause harm.

He opened his mouth to say more, thought better of it, and turned on his heel, beginning to walk away. 

Steve, however, grabbed onto him. 

“Loki, what the hell?” He demanded, voice warm and close behind Loki’s ear just like it had been when they laid together. Even though they had never  _ lain _ together. 

“Have I not caused enough damage, Steve?” He demanded, pulling back and out of his arms, steeling himself against the disappointment he would see in his face. 

But Steve didn’t look disappointed; he looked hurt, and confused, and… and angry. 

“What damage? This?” Steve gestured with one arm out at the darkened city beyond. “You could fix it if you wanted to. I know you could. And you should. But this isn’t-- power outages happen, this isn’t damage the way you mean… what else?” He looked  _ lost _ , and Loki hated that look on him. 

“I don’t know, sending you rocketing backward through time, trapping you into a frozen wasteland, nearly getting you killed, forcing you to take care of me while I worked to fix my mistakes?” Loki spoke snidely. 

“You saved the stone from Doom, you saved me from freezing, you got us both back here, at great personal cost, you’ve protected me and risked your life over and over again, and you think-- what, that I’m going to resent you for it?” 

“I think so, yes. And your friends will see us together and decide I’ve done something to you, and they will turn against you for deigning to think fondly of me. You think I haven’t seen as much before, Steve? I have lived so many times your years, and I’ll live so many times more after you’re gone.” 

Loki did not hide the hurt in his voice, even as a storm began brewing. 

“So what, you won’t give me a chance, because other people in the past have fucked up? Because you’ve decided you know how this will end?” 

“And what point is there in my staying, hm? I can’t help Barnes with the stone, and now you’ve seen what will happen, you see the destruction that using it causes. You won’t let anyone else use it, either.” The wind was whipping around him now, and he felt his hair stinging at his cheeks the same way the tears he would not allow to fall stung his eyes.

“Stay for me.” Steve called over the wind, his voice calm and strong despite the chaos around them. “Make the choice to do the right thing. There’s hospitals out there-- people who rely on power to breathe, people who need to see to be safe. We should help, try and get everything back online--” 

Above them, a bolt of lightning hit a tall building, and from that point, several more bolts split off, arcing over the city and beginning to restore light to the darkened buildings all around it. It was unnatural, powerful, almost miraculous. The work of a god.    
Thor had arrived. 

Loki nodded at the feat, the lightning’s brightness still clinging to the dark of the sky, even as the ground below began to glow once more. 

“As you can see, I’m not needed. You will always have better options than I, Captain.” 

He turned away again and fled into the last remaining shreds of darkness, hoping to hide from the Odinson, the Avengers, and his own feelings, all at once. 

This time, Rogers did not chase after him. 

Loki didn’t know whether to be sad or bitter or grateful, about that.


	28. Such Wow. Many Normal.  Very Oops.

Loki didn’t make it very far; he had nowhere to go, really, and so ended up hiding elsewhere in the park they had landed in-- near enough that he could see the tower, where everyone on Earth who knew him was no doubt huddled to discuss what to make of him now that they had parted ways. 

It was nearing morning, and though it was chilly, it was nowhere near so cold as it had been in those woods. He kept walking, retreading the steps he’d been taking since he saw Steve walk away.

It was ridiculous, he knew. He needed to make a decision, choose where to go next, what to do with himself next. 

He’d had plans, for the stone. He’d been an idiot to give it up like that. But then, he had no idea how much of history their little jaunt had changed here on Midgard. He had no real idea how much his plans to bring Frigga back would have changed, on Asgard. 

But there was part of him that wanted to stick around-- to lay low while keeping an eye on Steve to be sure he didn’t suffer any ill effects from having spent so much time with Loki. To be sure his friends didn’t suspect or reject him, and to give Thor time to go back home, after Loki didn’t immediately do anything overtly evil and eye catching.

And so, with that goal in mind, he was skulking in the shadow of Avengers tower when he caught wind of trouble. 

Trouble, in this case, appeared to be three men with other means of time distortion, who were interested in the stone for themselves. 

Loki mentally slapped himself. 

He’d used the stone, without Steve’s understanding or consent, to make a huge leap, and there had been immediate consequences in the form of shutting down power.  _ Of course _ there would be those who could determine the source, and of course they would come looking for the stone. 

_ The stone that Loki had handed Steve in a fit of self loathing. _

And now he was unprepared and these three were after him, and who knew who else might be on their way or already here. 

But at least, Loki thought, he was surrounded by his friends, the heroes-- it meant he was safer than he would be alone. 

Only, when Loki made his way invisibly up to the floors he’d been accustomed to visiting, he found himself pinned to the wall with Barnes’s metal arm.

“Show yourself.” He snarled, followed, almost immediately by, “What the hell did you do with Steve? Where is he?” 

Loki raised his hands, showing he meant not to fight back. 

“I thought he returned to you last night. I came looking for him myself-- to warn him. He has the stone, and he’s being hunted.”

Barnes let go of his hold on Loki’s throat and stepped back, watching him wearily. 

“JARVIS, is Steve in the building?” Barnes asked, eyes not leaving Loki’s. 

“ _ No sir. Captain Rogers has been missing since the attack two nights ago. _ ” 

Loki frowned. 

“We returned last night-- the power outage. We have to find him.” Loki turned around and walked back the way he’d come, and Barnes stumbled to keep up. 

“I am going to follow those who are tracking the stone. With any luck it will lead me to him. You gather your friends; I will be in touch in the event that we need backup. I’ll see him returned safely; I swear it.” Loki said, giving Barnes no time to interrupt or try to stop him. 

“Got it.” He ground out, surprising Loki almost into stopping. But Barnes was already reversing course and talking to the AI about summoning the others, so Loki left it be. 

He had more important things to focus on. 

Like where Steve had gone, the night before, after Loki had left him. 

Loki located the three men he’d noticed before with relative ease, and he studied their devices invisibly-- Steve was still, and close, and they were on their way to him. 

Loki wouldn’t have it, and made short work of the men, before they could think to react, a knife in each of the first two’s backs, and a growled question in the ear of the third with a knife at his neck:   
“Who sent you? Are there more?”

“The Collector. It’s-- it’s just us!”

Loki considered letting him go, sending back a message to the Collector, but he was familiar with the man-- ancient and powerful and stubborn. If he was told not to do something, it would make him go after it all the harder. 

And so Loki slit his throat and let him fall, hoping the Collector might forget or lose interest, if he simply never heard back. 

Loki recovered their tracker and followed it to an alley. 

“You know, when I said you had better options, this wasn’t what I had in mind.” Loki drawled, to hide his nervousness. 

He found Steve with his back to the wall, sitting down, head hanging. Immediately, he dropped the act. 

“Steve?” 

Steve looked up, his face exhausted and bruised. But he saw Loki, and smiled. 

Then immediately winced at the pain it caused. 

“Good t’see you.” He said, and Loki realized his lip was swollen as well. 

“It looks like someone really did a number on you.” Loki said, kneeling to get on a level with him. 

“Y’should see the other guy.” 

Loki shook his head.    
“I’m sorry; I didn’t think. They’re after the stone, again.”

“Yeah, figured that out m’self.” 

“Why did you not call for your friends, your team?” Loki felt like he was whining, trying to make sense of it. 

“I was looking for you, didn’t think you’d let me find you if I had them with me.” 

Loki had to concede he might have been right, but that didn’t make it any better. He felt guilt worming through his gut. 

“Well, I went to them this morning, looking for you when I discovered several men searching for the stone.” 

Steve looked up, alarmed, and his eyes flicked behind Loki, towards the mouth of the alley. 

“It’s alright. I saw to them already. But we should get you back to the tower. They were worried enough when we disappeared. When I returned without you…” He trailed off, and Steve winced again. 

“Yeah, alright.” Steve spoke as he began to stand, then sucked in a pained gasp, and Loki caught him before he could fall back down, fully. 

“I will carry you.” Loki said firmly, and when Steve opened his mouth to object, Loki shook his head. “Those are ribs, Steve, and your healing can only do so much. Come, let’s get you back.” 

He lifted Steve and got him into a bride’s carry. 

“Have you your phone?” Loki asked. 

Steve patted at his pocket. 

“Good. Let them know we are coming. I don’t want to be attacked for the state of you.” 

Steve sighed, but fished the phone out, and Loki turned all eyes away from them as he made his way back, once more, into the den of his former enemies, for this man.


	29. I think I need a doctor

Loki was surprised to find himself so fiercely protective of Steve, and even more surprised to find that respected, to some extent, by the Avengers and Barnes. 

“I would be happy to answer all of your questions, just as soon as Steve is seen to.” Loki told them, still carrying him, because Steve had nodded off at some point on the way back to the tower. 

“He looks like shit.” Barnes observed, and it was only perhaps half an accusation. 

“He nearly froze in the winter forests that used to be here, we had little to eat and next to no sleep for several days, he babysat for a family of the people of the long table, then he had to trade labor for lodgings in your New Amsterdam, and finally, when we were able to make it back to your time, he was attacked for having the stone. I believe he has some broken ribs. Now, where is his bed? The rest of your questions can wait.” 

Stark was, perhaps unsurprisingly, the first to volunteer to help Loki navigate the maze that was the tower. 

“You gonna have to do some sort of healing stuff on him again?” Stark asked, opening Steve’s door and stepping aside to allow Loki entrance.

“I don’t think so. Provided he can be convinced to allow himself to heal, I don’t think it will take him long. I expect it will take longer for him to be fully rested than fully healed.” 

He got Steve situated in his bed, and went about stripping him of Loki’s coat, his shoes, and emptying his pocket of the book and pen he’d been sketching in. 

He also found the stone, and breathed a sigh of relief, before passing it to Stark. 

“This was used recently, and is giving off a power signature that can be traced. Here is a machine which may track it. Can you make sure it cannot be found?” 

Stark took both with the glee of a child at midwinter. 

“You bet your sweet ass I can-- uh, how do you use this thing, so I can make sure to… not.” He brandished the stone somewhat hesitantly. 

“It should be exhausted of power for at least another day or two, but after that… well, I would simply advise you not touch it much, and certainly not think of another time while holding it.” 

“Noted.” Stark said. He paused on his way to the door. “Once he’s set, the rest of them are gonna be waiting for you on the main floor. JARVIS will take you there. And uh… thanks for having his back.” 

He left and Loki stared after him for a long moment, surprised at the sentiment. 

Perhaps he simply didn’t realize that it was Loki who had endangered him and then abandoned him, allowing this to happen. 

But that would come later. For now, he focused on Steve. 

Gingerly, Loki lifted Steve’s shirt to try and get a sense of the damage, but jumped when Steve grabbed his wrist, startled awake by all the movement, no doubt. 

Loki smiled at him over the edge of the cloth he still held. 

“It’s alright, you’re safe now. Back at the tower. I was only looking…” 

He turned his eyes back to Steve’s torso, which was littered with bruises that looked suspiciously as if he had been kicked, burned… and possibly stabbed. 

Loki lowered the shirt again, contriving to look unimpressed rather than worried. 

“It’s nothing. Like you said, it’ll heal quick.” 

Loki felt his lips twitching upwards at the corners.   
“Feigning sleep, Captain? Your friends will say I’ve been a bad influence.” 

Steve gave Loki his own little smirk, his mouth moving easier now the swelling had started to go down a bit.    
“Seems to me my friends are more thankful for you taking care of me.” 

Loki flapped his free hand.    
“They simply don’t know I was at fault for all of this, yet.” 

He looked pointedly at his wrist, where Steve’s hand still rested, less tight now, less of a threat-- just holding on to him. 

“Did you intend to keep me here until they come looking for answers?” 

Steve frowned. 

“Were you really planning on going up and facing them alone?” He asked in return. 

“Yes.” Loki said firmly. “I know you don’t like to admit it, but you were injured and this last week that we shared has to have been hard on you, body and mind alike. Take some time, come back to yourself.” 

He reached over and gently removed Steve’s hand. 

“We can discuss what has happened between us once you are… back to normal.” He chose his words carefully. “Once you no longer have lingering feelings of being reliant on me.” 

They were perhaps the most terrifying words he’d ever spoken. He tried to keep them cool and calm and even, though he knew he ruined it at the end by swallowing a little too audibly. 

Steve smiled, and it was beautiful, even through the discoloration and swelling. 

“That’s tricky-- forcing me to get better to get what I want. You and Natasha better not get too close while I’m down here, I don’t think the rest of us would survive that kind of team up.” 

Loki smiled and patted his hand. 

“I doubt any of them will come around to me so easily nor so thoroughly as you have,” He promised. 

“Well, don’t go getting in situations where you have to save their lives, and we won’t have to find out.” 

Loki stood and watched as Steve arranged himself a little more comfortably. 

“Let them know I’m resting, and then I’m gonna want a shower and food, in that order, before I see anybody.” 

“I shall.” Loki told him. 

“Stick around for when I wake up?” Steve requested, and Loki nodded. 

“I shall,” he repeated, a little quieter. 

And, against his better judgement, he meant to keep that promise.


	30. Now where did that come from?

Steve stayed abed for three days-- the longest, Loki was told, and by him no less, that he’d ever followed orders to relax for, and then only because Loki came down to spend the time with him. 

If the other Avengers found this odd, they did not say as much to either Loki or Steve, and if they would have preferred their time alone with Steve during their visits, Loki would have been quick to go-- save that none asked. 

And so, over the course of three days, he found himself in a myriad of odd social interactions with people he’d tried to kill or manipulate, and was surprised at how… simple it was. Easy. 

There was some tension still, of course; none of them would pretend there wasn’t. However, the suspicion he’d expected, the derision or outright hatred? That was nowhere to be found. They were cautious, but varying levels of polite. 

The widow was witty and interesting to talk to. She challenged him to a game of chess that he very much looked forward to, and Steve joked again about their combined likelihood of wrecking the rest of the team in any competition due to unfair mental advantage. 

Barton came to visit, bringing pizza with him, and they broke bread and had beer, and while he was a touch skittish, it seemed that Steve’s presence had a calming effect on both he and Loki. 

Banner came to check on Steve with his own medical knowledge, and to be certain that nothing was going awry, no bones mending improperly or anything. Not, he insisted, that he doubted Loki’s knowledge, but simply for his own peace of mind. 

He and Loki and Steve had ended up discussing differing medical techniques from each of their own homes- Steve’s being so far in the past that half of it was forgotten, like, apparently, telling asthmatics to smoke for the good of their lungs, and forcing anemics to eat large helpings of offal to help their iron levels. In addition, Loki learned that Steve’s mother was a healer in his youth, which, Loki thought, explained much of his urge to help others and save those who needed saving.

Loki was more familiar with herbal and magical remedies, and though Banner insisted repeatedly that he wasn’t  _ that _ kind of doctor, his knowledge of modern science based medical practices was fairly impressive. 

And while clearly they all wondered where this was going, only Stark and Barnes were so bold as to ask directly. 

Separately, of course, but with an amusingly similar lack of tact. 

“So uh-- you guys hooked up on your little time adventure?” Stark asked, during a lull in his questions about the power outage and its cause. Loki would have spluttered had he not been trained in how to hide responses from years in court. 

Steve on the other hand, had been in the process of drinking, and he genuinely choked on the water in his mouth. 

Loki was up in an instant, patting him on the back and glaring at Stark, who raised his hands defensively. 

“Just saying, you come back and you can’t seem to get enough of one another. You can’t blame a guy for wondering.”

“We did not  _ hook up _ , we nearly died, repeatedly!” Steve protested, his face glowing red under the scrutiny.

“So that’s a no?” Stark asked, looking to Loki for confirmation.

“Stark, our lack of sex lives is really none of your concern. I care for the Captain, which I think is your real question. Beyond that-- we shall see.” Loki glanced at Steve to make sure he hadn’t overstepped, and found such adoration on his face that for a moment, it took Loki’s breath away. 

“Oh. Yeah, well, alright.” Stark seemed taken aback, but recovered quickly. “I feel like I should… you know, give you a minute.” He got up and made his way to the door, and Loki followed him.

“I promise you, Stark, he is in good hands.” Loki said softly. 

Stark shook his head.   
“I don’t doubt it. And call me Tony. Have you talked to your brother?” 

Loki looked away.    
“I do not imagine he would take so kindly to this news.” Loki hedged, speaking softer still. “And I do not believe he wishes to see me.”

Tony shrugged.   
“I get it. I won’t say anything. But it might be worth seeing if you can fix the family drama. Family’s kinda important to Steve, after all-- I imagine he’ll want you to try, too.”

Loki felt a wave of anxious nausea hit him at that, but he just nodded and closed the door behind Stark. 

He hadn’t even made it back to Steve’s room when the next knock came, and Barnes let himself in shortly after, not waiting for Loki to answer. 

Barnes looked Loki up and down, crossed his arms, and met his eyes dead on. 

“You and Stevie an item now?” He asked, point blank.

Loki sighed. 

“Your people have so many ways to ask this question. I care for him a great deal, yes.” 

“Buck? Stop harassing my guy and get in here.” Steve called from the other room, and that was that. 

Barnes was far more interested in the stone, and the stories of the effects of it that Loki had suffered. 

He seemed, grudgingly, to accept that long jumps were a bad idea, and that something like remaking his past was… perhaps not the greatest of plans. Especially given that he was closer to whatever Steve was than what Loki was, and he couldn’t handle it near so well. 

He left, with much to mull over, and Loki relaxed into the idea that the stone might, at last, be safe.

\---

At length, even Loki had to admit that Steve was well again. He healed fast and he needed no more rest-- he was back at the top of his abilities. 

Which meant it was time to have their conversation, despite having had parts of it through others. 

“So. You care for me, huh?” Steve asked, grinning. 

Loki felt his anxiousness bubbling rapidly to a boil within him. 

“I should hope that was fairly obvious.” He said quietly, carefully not looking Steve in the eye. 

“It is. It’s just nice to hear.” Steve assured him. “Because I feel the same.” 

Loki smiled and looked up, then.

“So, where does that leave us?” 

“Not enemies, I hope.” Steve started, and Loki laughed. 

“No, hardly that.”

“Would you consider-- in my time, we called it going steady. Now I guess it’s just… dating?”

“Is that the same as courtship?” 

Steve flushed at that, and Loki smirked a little, charmed. 

“Yeah, uh, I guess it’s similar.” 

“Good. Then I would like to declare my intent to court you, Steve Rogers. If you’ll have me.” 

“Oh, uh yeah. I don’t… know what courtship entails, but yeah, I’ll have you. And um, if you’ll show me how, I want to do the same. Court you, I mean.” Steve was adorably flustered, and it made Loki feel a little steadier on his feet. He stepped forward and took Steve’s hand. 

“On Asgard, it’s gifts. Treasures and prizes won, deeds done in your name. It’s a matter of proving oneself worthy of the person they love, and making their partner feel wanted and adored.” 

“Oh.” Steve said quietly. “That’s uh, nice, but you don’t have to buy me gifts.” 

Loki tilted his head, then nodded. 

“I’ll prove myself in deeds, then. And to that end, I would invite you to consider me, if not part of your team, at least at your disposal, if I can be of help in any matter that affects you or your friends.” Loki paused, then added, “So long as it doesn’t involve my using the damned timestone again.” 

Steve cracked a smile at that, though he looked like he was thinking very hard. 

“Is there anything in particular that you can think of you’d like from me?” He asked, sounding the most timid that Loki thought he’d been for this entire conversation. 

Loki squeezed his hands reassuringly and lifted a finger to his lips in a pretense of thinking.    
“Hmm.” He said. “I can think of one thing, right now.” 

Steve seemed to perk up a bit at that, endearingly eager to please. 

“What’s that?” He asked. 

“Kiss me?” Loki responded, trying not to feel too shy or embarrassed for asking. 

However, Steve seemed entirely happy to oblige. 

It was a little clumsy, as if Steve had had little experience, but that was hardly a problem; by the time they pulled apart, Loki was panting a little and Steve had turned an incredibly fetching shade of pink. 

They rested their foreheads together for a moment and just held one another.

It was an altogether perfect start.

\--

And so it was that, a day or two later, when the Avengers were called out to do some world saving mission, Loki found himself following Steve to board the quinjet and report for duty. 

He was stopped, though, with a powerful grip on his shoulder holding him back. 

He turned to find himself face to face with Thor, and swallowed. 

He’d been so happy with Steve, he had fully forgotten his once-brother was still on Midgard. 

“Thor.” He greeted, cautiously but trying for politeness.

“Whatever this game is, abandon it now and return to whatever cave you crawled from.” Thor was stern and his voice thunderous with threats unspoken. 

“Thor.” Steve’s, on the other hand, was commanding, and Loki looked up to see him at the top of the steps, one hand on the body of the quinjet. “Loki offered to help us. Same as you. Don’t endanger the team with your drama. That stays here, or you do.” 

“I?” Thor asked, shocked that he should be benched in a competition between he and Loki. 

It made butterflies flit through Loki’s stomach. 

“You’re the only one who seems to have a problem with working with him.” Steve said simply, and Loki realized that was true. Even Barton seemed to be coming around; albeit on his own time.

Thor, clearly annoyed, brushed past Loki to board the quinjet, stopping beside Steve to drop a heavy hand on his shoulder. 

“I hope,” Thor said lowly, “That you know what you are doing. Not everyone deserves redemption.” 

Steve turned his head to look him square in the eye.   
“Everyone who wants redemption should be allowed to claim it.” Steve said, loudly enough for it to carry to both Loki and everyone inside. 

Thor shook his head, but entered the plane with no further words, and Steve deplaned to take Loki’s hand in his. 

“Are you alright?” He asked quietly. 

In honesty, Loki was shaking. But he pushed it down and refused to let Steve know how affected he was. He didn’t want to be left behind for it.    
“I am. Let’s go save your people.” He squeezed Steve’s hand, then dropped it to board their transport. 

\--

It was a fast ship, as fast if not faster than an Asgardian vessel, and it landed them at their destination less than two hours after they left. 

“We’re about an hour outside of Lakhimpur, near the Ghaghara river.” The widow explained. “There are reports that SHIELD vehicles have been spotted around here-- Fury, however, didn’t send them, and doesn’t have any record of missing assets, which means we’re probably dealing with Hydra. And, it seems they are taking hostages, mostly in the medtech field. We’re going to find them, free them, and put a stop to whatever Hydra’s doing. And, on the off chance it has anything to do with samples they took from Steve…” She trailed off and looked from Loki to Barnes, “We have two experts on destroying that present.” 

“Thanks, Nat.” Steve said, standing up. “We’re not too concerned about being quiet. I don’t want any innocent deaths, if we can avoid it, and no harming any landmarks, if they’ve taken over anything that might be culturally important. This isn’t our country, let’s be respectful. Everything else, though? Anything that Hydra is proud of? I wanna see it go up in smoke.” 

There was a shared expression of pleasure at that, and Loki noted that Thor was, again, staring at him. He kept his eyes on Steve. 

“Okay, so, we’ve got sightings on this road here,” Steve pointed on the map,”that leads into the trees. Locals who have tried to see where they go have not returned. My thought is to stage an ambush, steal a vehicle, work our way into the compound in disguise, and destroy them from the inside out. But, we could use a distraction, to get everyone scurrying. So, once we have the car, I want Tony and Thor overhead to give them something to focus on and something to fight. Stay out of range if possible, but draw their attention away from us on the ground while we get the lay of the land.” 

Tony and Thor nodded. 

“Bruce, Nat, Clint, you three are together once we get inside. I want you to get to the medical labs. Nat, get whatever you can off of their machines, and then wipe them, as fast as possible. You three have some Hindu and some Urdu between you, so you should be able to talk to the hostages. I want you to head up evac for the civilians. Loki, Bucky and I will handle the higher ups. And then on my signal, Tony, Thor, Bruce, feel free to tear it to the ground.”

“I like this plan.” Tony said, intentionally overly chipper, and there were scattered nods throughout the ship. 

\--

The plan went mostly as it was laid out. They took down the soldiers in the car and climbed aboard, Barton, Bruce, and Natasha donning their clothing and Steve, Loki, and Bucky hiding in the back. 

Loki could hear the sounds of thunder just as they crossed the bridge that led up to the building their car had been headed towards, and the distracted Hydra guards let them in in a hurry. 

Once parked, they split up to see to their assigned tasks. 

Loki used his trick of diverting the eyes of onlookers, so that Steve, Bucky and he were all but invisible. They made their way deeper and higher up in the building, watching where the more decorated soldiers emerged from, and following that path. 

The first problem arose when it became clear that some of the civilians were being held here, close to the officers, and not down with the others that Natasha, Bruce, and Barton were meant to be getting out. 

“I’ll take them.” Barnes offered, once he’d broken the neck of one of the men guarding the cell, and Loki had buried a knife in the throat of the other. 

Loki was quick to agree; though he had the Allspeak, he was loathe to leave Steve on his own, particularly after what a similar group had done to him. 

So he spoke to the people inside, learned that they were the missing doctors, and told them that he was here with the Avengers, and the man with the metal arm would be leading them to safety. 

“Just get them down to the other group, if you can-- I don’t want you trying to take them all out on your own. Meet up and help the others, so you have someone on your six.”

Barnes snapped off a sarcastic looking little salute. 

“Yes sir, captain sir.” Barnes said, and Steve huffed and rolled his eyes, but smiled. 

“How long have you known him?” Loki asked as they continued moving deeper into the Hydra hold. 

“My whole life, really, save the part where we were on ice or brainwashed, respectively.” 

Loki shook his head. 

“It is a strange life you’ve led, my captain. Stranger than most.” 

They found the room that was home to those in a position of command, and found them all on phones or huddled around visual feeds of Thor and Tony, raining down annoyance on them from above. 

“But why?” One was saying. “They could be destroying us, why are they toying with us?” 

“Because,” Said one man, who looked distinctly unlike the rest. Something about him reminded Loki of Barnes, when they’d first met. He was standing very straight, coiled and ready to spring, and he all but vibrated with barely contained power. Most importantly, he was looking directly at Steve and Loki. “Their friends are inside.” 

Loki darted forward, immediately placing himself between the man and Steve, which proved to be a good decision. The man pulled out a throwing knife and Loki caught it, reversing it and throwing it back towards him. It landed, and he pulled it from his shoulder and let it fall to the ground as if it was no more bothersome than a fly.

“Steve, take care of the rest, they still have a hard time seeing you!” Loki instructed, squaring off against this one.

The man lunged forward, one hand still holding a knife, which he brought up and under Loki’s ribs, but Loki blocked it-- the blade bouncing harmlessly off of his bracer. The man’s other hand was empty but the fist that made contact with the side of Loki’s head may as well have been concrete. 

Loki’s vision blacked out briefly, and he felt himself get stabbed in the side, but it didn’t seem to have done much damage. When he could see properly again, he wrested the knife free of the man and caught his arms in Loki’s own, turning it into a test of sheer strength. 

And the man was strong-- stronger than a run of the mill human. 

“He’s been modified!” Loki yelled for Steve’s benefit, the words coming out strained as he spoke through his teeth. 

“I understand I have you to thank!” the man told Loki. “You left him, and they made me from part of him.” 

Loki snarled and took the man’s legs out from under him, landing neatly atop his chest and pinning his arms with Loki’s knees. 

“Shame it took you so long to find us; there’re dozens of men like me, now. Cut off one head--” 

Loki felt another body crash into his back, but he stayed focused on the man beneath him. Loki summoned another of his knives-- the longer ones for close range fights, this time-- and slid it home through his trachea. 

The man fell back and was no more. 

Loki turned his attention, then, to the body that had fallen on him-- it was not Steve, which was all that mattered. 

He found Steve at a bank of computers, holding a dead man’s hand to a fingerprint reader. 

“A good trick.” Loki commented, as he sidled up to him. “I’m afraid I have some bad news, though.” He said, nodding at the man he’d taken out. “It seems we did not get  _ every _ sample.” 

Steve set his jaw. 

“Yeah, I’m seeing that. Jesus-- there’s four of them here. We have to warn the others.” 

Loki nodded, and watched as Steve inserted a drive into the computer, which then went to work, downloading files and leaving its own behind. 

Loki used the communications device he’d been given. 

“In case you’ve not run into them yet, there are soldiers as strong as Steve here. Three of them, at least.” 

“Fuck!” he heard from Barton, and Steve shook his head but got the drive removed as all of the screens around him began to malfunction. 

“Buck, you with the main group?” 

“I’m here, the civilians have all been rounded up, according to them we got everyone. On our way out to the car now.” 

“Great.” Steve answered. 

“Bruce, you wanna go join Tony and Thor, maybe get a little green?” 

“On it.” 

“As soon as everyone’s clear, I want this place reduced to rubble.” 

Steve said over the intercom, before cutting his mic. 

“Then let’s get ourselves out of here.” Loki said. “Here, I’ll lead-- just in case they send more of those soldiers our way. I can put up a shield that covers more than yours.”

Steve smiled. 

“Real glad you’re on our side, now.” He told Loki shortly, and dropped a quick peck to his lips. “Let’s go.” 

Loki did as he said he would, erecting a shield and leading them to safety. They did not encounter the advanced soldiers, which he considered a mixed blessing, and by the time they gained the outside of the compound, the Hydra troops were attempting to fall back. 

They let them, checked in with Natasha, and gave the destruction crew the all clear. 

Without a car, and with the Quinjet parked on the other side of the wooded area, that meant they were on foot. But at least the company was pleasant, and the enemy was distracted. 

“Not bad for a first outing.” Steve said, but his attempt at joviality sounded pinched. 

“We will find the rest of these advanced soldiers.” Loki promised him, guessing at what was bothering him.

“Yeah, we’re going to have to.” Steve ran a hand through his hair, still looking distressed, and Loki reached out for him, taking his hand and marveling again at the warmth of him, and how well they fit together. 

The adrenaline was starting to wear off, and he could see it in the slant of Steve’s shoulders. He leaned in and kissed him, really kissed him, this time, no quick mid-battle peck, and Steve pulled him in close. 

When they broke apart, Loki was light headed, and Steve was looking besotted. He reached up to push some of Loki’s hair behind his ear, and froze. 

Steve stumbled backwards, and Loki saw why: his hand was covered in blood. 

Loki twisted and twitched aside the cape that was sticking to his side, only to see the knife wound he’d forgotten about earlier. 

“Ah.” He said. 

The lightheadedness, it turned out, was perhaps at least partially due to blood loss. 

“I’ll be fine,” he assured Steve, pressing his hand to his own side with the bloody cape to put pressure on the wound. 

And then, from the trees, the three missing soldier attacked, as if they had smelled his weakness. 

“Awh, shit.” Loki heard Steve say, just before something was shoved over his head, and he was knocked unconscious.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! SO sorry this chapter is going up a bit late; I did a twelve hour fundraising stream yesterday, and it really took more out of me than expected. I ended up running very behind schedule today.   
> So, I made it extra long and full of what I think everyone wanted, to help make up for it.   
> Happy Halloween, and I'll have the final chapter up for you later today!


	31. Today's Special: Torture

Loki came to atop a table, feeling cold and incredibly weak. He wasn’t tied down, which suggested that Hydra wasn’t worried about him escaping. And he could only imagine why that was.

In a panic, he reached for his seidhr, and was relieved to find it still within him, still responsive. 

They hadn’t used their drugs on him this time-- he assumed because he’d lost enough blood to be deemed a lost cause. 

The joke, however, was on them; his seidhr would work to preserve him, heal him… and he felt weak, but fairly whole. He pressed his seidhr to fill in the gaps in his strength, and sat up, waiting for the dizziness to clear before standing. He took stock: his armor had been stripped away, but he still wore his bottom cloth layers. They’d taken his boots as well, which was less than ideal, and his shirt was stuck to his side with dried blood. He was a little sore, a little light headed, and still a little weak, but the seidhr would help until the adrenaline fully kicked in.

There was no one around, and the room seemed to be kept cold for the other occupants’ sake. There were, he saw, three other bodies on tables, one showing some signs of already having been carved into, but all dead. 

He shuddered at having apparently been counted among them, and immediately began checking the room for a weapon. 

There were a variety of knives, all tiny, and bone saws, which would be mostly useless in battle. 

So he reached within himself and pulled out his dual fighting knives, then used illusory magic to create a false costume over what was left on him of his clothes.

Disguised as a Hydra operative, Loki made his way out of the room, bare feet quiet on the polished floors of this base. 

He had no idea where they were or how far from the Avengers they might be, but that would be a matter of later concern. The first thing he needed to do was find Steve. 

He heard something-- it sounded like someone swearing-- and found the three soldiers crowded around Steve, whose arms were chained together and hanging from an overhead hook. 

  
From the way one of the soldiers was holding his face, and the way the hook was swaying, Loki guessed that Steve’s immobile arms hadn’t stopped him from breaking the other man’s nose with a well aimed kick. 

Good. 

Less good, on the other hand, was the sheen of sweat that covered Steve, the way his eyes looked red, the blood trickling from the side of his head. 

He was swaying, even without the hook, and Loki wasn’t sure how long he had been out, leaving Steve,  _ once again _ , to Hydra’s torture.

He wouldn’t be too late this time, though. 

He pushed open the door silently, and Steve’s eye tracked him, but he was careful not to turn his head. 

That was a good sign; he was aware enough to keep his wits about him. 

“You’re nothing now.” Steve said, his voice rough. Loki winced at the sound of it. “You have to keep getting injected-- you can’t keep your serum from dying off. And you were running low even before we crushed your stores. So what, you think you’re gonna just keep harvesting it from me? How long can you keep that up, do you think?” 

Loki’s eyes widened-- Steve was telling him that these men were probably no more than that, now-- just men. 

“Well, we figure we can probably get some magic blood out of your dead friend, get a little bit of a boost from your serum blood… maybe the two combined will do the trick.” 

One of them drawled. 

“You know, somehow I doubt that.” Loki said, dropping his illusion and stepping forward, knives ready. 

He sent a bolt of seidhr over to unchain Steve, and gave the soldiers a nasty looking smile. 

“Two very strong men, one with magic and knives, against three very weak ones, one with a broken nose. You’ve been torturing my boyfriend. And I’m between you and the door. How do you suppose this is going to end?” 

One of the soldiers charged at Loki, and all hell broke loose. 

\--

Afterwards, when Loki had vanished his knives and they were searching through the base for his armor and Steve’s shield, Steve cleared his throat. 

“So uh, I’m your boyfriend now, huh?” He was clearly exhausted, but the slyness in his voice was reassuring. They hadn’t broken him this time; only beaten him a little. 

“Is that not the appropriate word? On Asgard I would call you my intended, but I understood that might be too… fast, here.” Loki was watching where he stepped very intently, to avoid hurting his bare feet, of course. 

“No, boyfriend’s fine. It sounds odd coming from you is all. Like the word doesn’t fit right.” 

Loki bit his lip, wondering what that meant. 

“Should I call you something else?” 

Steve shrugged.    
“Doesn’t matter what you call me. Long as I can call you mine.” 

Loki looked up and saw that same dopey, cheesy grin on his face that Steve sometimes wore when they were alone. 

“You besotted twit.” Loki said, stopping them so that he could kiss him. 

The kiss was interrupted by the sound of an emergency call coming in on one of their communicators in the next room. 

They traded a glance and hurried in to contact their friends, arrange a pick up, and make their way back home, and to whatever came next. 

As they waited outside, scanning the horizon for their ride, they linked their hands together and spoke of all the things the world had to offer them now-- art museums and nice restaurants, strolls in the park, adventures wherever the calls for help would take them. 

And when the plane landed and Thor rushed out to pull Loki into his arms, relieved that his brother was alive, despite the videos they’d found of him being injured and losing blood, Loki felt hope.    
Hope untinged by dread, or sense of failure, hope that he might build something anew. Hope that, for the first time in a long time, he wouldn’t be alone. 

From over Thor’s shoulder, he shot Steve a hopeful smile, and received one in return. 

It was going to be all right. 

Loki was going home.


End file.
